


Ocean Child

by Betery



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bromance, Demigods, Gen, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron)-centric, There is Klance here but they don't make it formal, communication with the lions, very small crossover with Moana but it's only to mention Te Fiti
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2020-10-05 10:57:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 27,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20487767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Betery/pseuds/Betery
Summary: Everyone comes from somewhere. Lance comes from the ocean, but he also grew up in Cuba. With two mothers and a huge family, he was set! He already knew the land and the sea. Now all that was left was the sky! Lance didn't expect to be blasted into the other side of the galaxy far far away from what he held dear. But that was okay. Like water, he too could go with the flow. Besides, with the little group they had and a war to fight there really wasn't a lack of things to do.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! This fic has been on my mind for quite some time and I'm really glad that I can now show it to all of you!! This was inspired by a comic that joker-ace on Tumblr who made a thing about Lance being a bit ticked and the water reacting to his emotions so here we are! I hope you enjoy the plot bunny that grew into a whole story!

Lance was of the ocean. His mother cradled him in her encompassing embrace and sung him old songs of Earth, telling him he would be wonderful and a gift to the world. He remembers playing with dolphins and singing with whales. As a little boy, when one day he washed ashore and was found by a nice family. They didn’t know where Lance had come from or how he had survived the ocean without drowning. But his mother was kind to Lance. (as he was named by his Land family)

He grew up loving the sea, and to love innocent humans. He wanted to protect his mother’s so he would fight for them. He went to train at the Garrison with Hunk (who was a child of life and creation and was THE best friend in the whole world period) but the sky wasn’t exactly something that came naturally to either of them.

Hunk was good and making and fixing things, Lance went with the flow of his path and wanted to be the one to take action: fighter Pilot. But he didn’t make the cut. It stung but if he fought hard to be the best of the best of the cargo pilots then if an opening came he would be selected. Lance was selected but was constantly reminded of all of his failings. He jumped the gun, made too many jokes. No one respected him enough to allow him to be the leader he knew he could be.

Pidge was someone Lance couldn’t understand that well. He always seemed far away, his gaze looking through Lance as he went off somewhere.

\--

“Come on Hunk.” Lance Prods, “Let’s go have some fun!”

Hunk groaned, “But Lance, every time we try and do something fun for YOU  ** we  ** and by we I mean  ** I  ** get in trouble!”

\--

Lance was flying a LION. And good gracious Mother Earth she was SINGING in his head, it was beautiful. It was like hearing the waves of his mother and the inner song of magic. It was a whirlpool of harmony with the sounds of birds and bubbling laughter and  _ finally finally finally.  _

This Lion felt like she was OF water. Like Mother had made him herself, but like she was..of something else, and she wanted to get back to where she was supposed to be.

“Let’s see what you want to do.” And he let her tell him how to move the controls. Guide him to making a wormhole. A thrill of  _ something  _ ran through Lance, fear excitement? Who knew but Lance was definitely gonna find out what was beyond that wormhole and went right for it as the others screamed around him.

\--

Lance couldn’t just go back now. He realized that night, after failing to flirt with a princess and getting Hunk his Lion (Hunk had nearly DIED) and forming Voltron. He was traveling in space to fight a war with five lions or one large robot and he couldn’t just go back home to see the ocean. His MOTHER. Hunk couldn’t see Te fiti. She must be SO worried about him. And Pidge definitely had a family too but never talked about them.

Lance looked out at the stars and had this ache in him. He wanted to be home, diving into his mother’s embrace. Exploring the waters, playing with the dolphins and other fish that reside there. Hunting for treasure and eating meals with his Land family. He missed his Mom’s hugs…

Suddenly there was a warm hand on his shoulder and Hunk ever the empathetic being he was, was smiling at him with tears brimming his eyes.

“We’ll get back to them one day, Lance. I’m sure of it.”

They hugged it out, but Lance couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be. 1 year? A hundred?

\--

Keith was a feisty S-O-B and Lance wanted him. Badly. But of course, there was Allura that lovely spitfire of a gal he didn’t have a chance with he had to think about too. It didn’t help that both of them would honestly not give him the time of day.

Lance wasn’t sure when exactly it was that he had fallen in love with the Red Paladin of Voltron. Maybe when he saved Coran? (No way would he EVER let Keith know he remembered their bonding moment. Ever. That was a lie he could not go back on without consequences.)

How do you get an antisocial S-O-B to talk to you? Lance decided that if Keith was convinced he was self-important (not entirely a lie) and annoying (hurtful but having a personality had it’s pro’s and cons.) Lance would make it his new mission to include Keith in any activity.

The next day when dinner finished Keith got up to train, this was Lance’s cue- he also got up and followed Keith. At first, the subject (Keith) wasn’t bothered by this since the pathway to their rooms, common room, anywhere else really was connected by that one hallway. But when Lance failed to make any other turns and stay true to a couple of feet behind Keith he then got suspicious.

“What are you doing?” He asked slowly, stopping in the hallway, turning to face Lance. Lance smiled and shrugged.

“Feeling a little stir crazy. You like to train after eating, and I wanna spar with someone. We can help each other out.”

“I…train with the drone.”

“Then we can both fight the drone?” Lance suggested easily and Keith, frustrated and confused did the only thing he could, huff turns around and mutter ‘whatever, just don’t wine.’ Which Lance was cool with. Step one complete.

Turns out training a little extra was doing wonders for Lance’s muscle tone with was just fine with him but he wanted to  _ relax  _ for a change.

“Hey, Allura.” He approached, smiling at her as sweetly as he could and Allura looked from her glowing control panels of information.

“Lance.” She greeted, putting on a gentle smile herself, “What can I help you with?”

“I was wondering if you had like…records of movies or something. Or TV shows. Documentaries. Anything.”

“Hm. I’m not sure. I could check the files on the castle for any uncorrupted data, I’ll get back to you on that.”

Lance pumped his fist in the air in victory. “Awesome!”

And Allura did indeed let him know, apparently a good number of Altean movies were saveable from the decaying data streams in the castle and had its own form of a theater.

\--

Back on earth when he was closest to his mom sometimes he could make the water move. It was really fun seeing his human family splash in the waves and his littlest siblings laughed the hardest. Seeing their smiles meant the most to him. It was also nice when he was in the bath cause if he got bored he could do something, lift it, make shapes. Super useful if there was a spill sometimes. Water was water even if it had other stuff in it.

It was totally an accident when he found out. Normally when he was around other humans he tried not to. He had known it was possible considering who his mom was. He didn't think it would work it if it WASN'T his mom.But H20 is H20 no matter where you are he found out.

It was one evening when Pidge was bored and fiddling with her electronics. Mumbling about one thing or another and a water pouch precariously placed on the edge of their laptop.

WIth a careless mutter and a jerk of their arm Pidge knocked the pouch off and lance when to grab it, reaching for it and then the water reached _back _the water with the pouch floated in the air a spill frozen but still liquid in mid air and Lance was stunned. The water reacted. He still had a small connection to earth. A heat built up in his eyes and he knew he would cry if he didn’t stop himself. Come on Lance you can’t cry, not in front of Pidge!

“Lance, whatever you’re doing don’t stop doing it,” Pidge demanded and quickly moved the laptop out of the war zone and they over the water from multiple angles.

“How are you doing this?” They asked, “Is this new? Cause if this is new then we really need to go see Coran cause this could be a mutation or a virus or-“

Chuckling Lance wiggled his fingers returning the wayward water to the pouch where it belonged and he grabbed the pouch from the air. “No Pidge, this isn’t new” Lance smiled so wide and chuckled again. “It’s…kinda nice.”

Hunk was grinning at Lance from his spot on the couch, a translated book on his pad. He gave a thumb up and Lance grinned back.

He  _ had  _ to go ask Coran.

Coran was pleased by the challenge, “I can’t guarantee it’ll be like your earth Oceans but I’ll find you something safe to swim in my boy you have my guarantee!

Relief was like a cool balm and he patted Coran’s shoulder in thanks, “Don’t run yourself raged my dude, we still have a universe to save after all.” And he turned to go see what Pidge was up to.

“I swear hunk there’s something about pidge.” Lance narrowed his eyes at their resident gremlin. “She managed to get the EXACT part we needed. She talked to them for like, what…five minutes?”

Pidge rolled her eyes, “All I did was trade them something of mine, which honestly a copy of the Hamilton soundtrack isn’t that bad a trade at all.” She grinned, “But I didn’t tell them how to convert the format.”

Lance shivered,  _ A monster. Pidge is a real monster. Fey perhaps?  _

\--

Fighting The Galra totally sucked and did horrible things to Lance’s skin due to the oil he produced due to the stress of floating and flying in a void of nothing while facing life and death. Right now they were in a lull and Lance was desperate to do some relaxing, but he didn’t want to do it alone.

“Keeiiiith.” Lance whined dramatically flopping next to him in the common room. “You’re skin is just  _ crying  _ for a nice treatment. Come on, when was the last time you relaxed?”

“Uh…” Keith thought back, “When was the last time you forced me to watch that Altean movie?”

“Dude that was like, three days ago! You haven’t relaxed since then?”

Keith shrugged, “I train with you, that’s kinda relaxing.”

Lance huffed shoving his shoulder into Keith’s, “That’s like.. exercise. Relaxing in some form or another but.. not like the relaxing I mean my man. I mean like…taking a shower and putting a face mask, or brushing your hair, deep conditioning. Some… _ maintenance.  _ You know?”

Keith frowned, furrowing his brows at Lance taking in the words processing and processing until-

“I… don’t really do that. I take showers sure but that’s just.. to clean you know? But… sometimes when everything is just loud or whatever I go to my room to uh, sharpen my knife.”

Lance grinned, “Alright, let’s do that. I deep clean my skin and you deep clean your knife. Two bro’s just relaxing doing what makes them feel better.”

Keith rolled his eyes but got up when Lance did, “As long as you don’t force me to wear that goo stuff we’ll be good.”

“Promise,” Lance responded and felt this giddy part of him as he realizes that he’s gonna have Keith alone in his  _ room  _ for a little while. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The adventure continues, they meet mermaids and space druids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, it's another chapter!!

Zarkon and his Witch were high on Lance’s list of ‘if I see them I’ll punch them’ because messing up their Teludav portal WAS NOT COOL.

Lance tried to get Blue to stop spinning around so violently but blue wasn’t responding she was completely offline, and hearing Hunk screaming in his ear was NOT helping.

“Hunk, buddy, CALM DOWN I’m right here with you we can figure this out-“ They hit the water and start sinking hard and fast.

“Hunk yo, buddy pal-“ Lance winced at Hunk’s retching over the coms, “You just threw up didn’t you?”

“Well, maybe.” He responded sheepishly, “I had some questionable food goo before the fight-“

“It’s fine Hunk no need to explain to me, we literally just had a ride on the worst roller coaster in the history of roller coasters.”

There’s a hard jolt as they hit the bottom of the ocean, so now that there’s little fear Lance could cause any more damage he starts trying to mess with the controls, “Come on girl, wake up.” But she’s out out and he sighs. “How’s yellow?”

“Not responding, looks like we’re _dead in the water_.” And paused for effect. Lance rolled his eyes.

“Okay comedian let’s try and- blue’s controls started lighting up like a beacon of hope, “Oh thank the gods Blue, now let’s see what we’re up against.” He looked at the sensors trying to see if there was anything being picked up and yes, Blue's controls felt better than ever that didn't mean she was built to handle battles underwater. Either that or she was still waking up and the sensors took longer to boot up. He grasped the control and turned blue around to get a better look around. Rocks, sand inky blackness in the far distance but there- a flash of something swimming behind the pillar and Lance does a double-take as the flash of well, _hair _and then a flash of a _fish tale. _

“What was that?” And he turns his Lion (barely a tilt, did he mention how awesome the controls felt under the water??), and there it is _again _just darting around getting quickly out of his line of sight, a flash of a tail disappearing into the darkness. “Hunk buddy ol’ pal I think I just saw a _mermaid._”

“What?” Hunk respond and Lance is already gearing up to get out there. No use trying to find something small and quick when it would be easier to go out there and do it himself. “Lance if you’re thinking about going out there I really think-“ But lance was already out and about looking around with his flashlight.

He would give anything to just take off his helmet. He hated how it limited his vision, but could he breath under waters that weren’t his mom’s? Lance wasn’t really willing to find out. His heart ached with the strain of the pressure on his suit and he sighed. Okay. Enough of that time to focus on the mermaid.

“Lance," Hunk scolded coming out of his Lion, shoulders hunched and he kicked his legs a little bit his breaths coming short from the pressure on his body, "We need to stay with the Lions.”

“But if there IS life here that can help us it won’t hurt to ask for it.” Hunk was silent in his own stubborn way, “Look, _I’m _going to look for the mermaid, you can stay in yellow. In the Dark. _Alon-“ _

“Please don’t leave me alone!” Hunk shouts grabbing Lance’s hand after a quick swimming sprint. Lance clasps Hunks shoulder.

“Good to have you on the expedition buddy, now let’s go find us that mermaid.”

Mermaids were not nice. Mermaids were people that took over your friend and make you fight him!! NOT COOL. They may have given Lance a nice air bubble, but it was getting REALLY inconvenient. He had the terrible urge to just pop the bubble and see how much his influence over water extended to an alien planet. He just wanted hunk to STOP ATTACKING HIM. The jellyfish itched and he kept dropping the fish that would snap his buddy out of it.

After Hunk slammed into him again, knocking him back against the wall Lance had reached the end of his game of pretend. Out of pure frustration, he clawed at the bubble until it popped. There was a rush of water a moment of adjusting his body to filtering oxygen from the water and what he had thought has been his heartbeat and blood rushing through his ears was actually very large shouting of DANGER DANGER.

Lance got a little distracted and got tackled. Dang as a zombie servant Hunk didn't really know how to fight, but that wasn't a complaint, not at all! He managed to worm his way out of Hunk's grasp and reached out a hand willing the currents to get that pufferfish back into his grasp, in less than 10 seconds thee little guy plopped into his hand.

“Sorry to do this buddy…” Not really feeling apologetic at all (except towards the puffer) Hunk got a face full of the green gas. The effect was nearly instantaneous and Hunk sputtered, coughing and flailing his hands around “Ew- what? Lance?” He looked around trying to place where they were.

“Hunk, you were trying to kill me because the queen put you under a spell.”

“Oh, uh. I’m sorry.” Hunk ever his flustered friend was so _genuine _he would kiss him if it wasn’t an inappropriate time for it.

“It’s fine, let’s get to our lions.”

\--

Big bad Queen instead was not THE big bad but instead, it was the Big Bad Baku and it was a dragon worm thing and there was a sense of _wrongness _as he and Hunk tried to battle it out.

“Hold on, I’ve got an idea.” And he parks Blue, getting up from his seat shedding his suit as quickly as he can. He was gonna need as much exposure to the water as possible.

“Lance, wait you don’t know if-“

“I know Hunk but I gotta try.” He pressed the button to open the hatch so he could leave Blue.

_DANGER DANGER _the water shouted even louder Lance took a minute to adjust to this new voice and the feeling around him.

_How do I help? What can I do? _

The water pressed around him reassuringly, humming with relief and power he wasn’t even sure he could harness. With Hunk at his back, he was certain he could do this. So he let himself relax and let the ocean just..take over.

When he opened his eyes everything looked different, instead of color it was seeing the depth of everything the various energies and aura's that the water held about it and the beast before him was scared, hurting, and just wanting a healthy meal.

“Let’s get you on a diet on NON- sentient food.” He encouraged and urged the current to speed the creature south, plentiful fish and no mermaids to eat. 

Lance returned to blue a little reluctantly the ocean much more grateful than before. Blue purred when he was inside and safe and Hunk was going wild, “DUDE THAT WAS AWESOME.” And Lance laughed, “Just wait buddy, you’ll have your moment.”

Then hunk got quiet, “Yeah. Maybe.”

\--

Being back in the castle was like being back in the hotel that you’re staying in on a long vacation, it’s not home but it’s close enough for now. The first thing Lance did when he was released was plop onto his bed, close his eyes, and sleep.

Sleeping was a mistake. It started off nice dreamed of his Mom, depths of oceans he could reach fish he could play with and whales that he sang with. He dreamed of his mom’s hugs and the Mcclain family giving him a home and food to eat when he didn’t even know what anything was.

He dreamed of the sky opening up and a large lion gobbling him up and alien worlds crying out for help as he was taken away Earth becoming just a small dot of light in the distance until that dot of light faded too.

He dreamed of cold metal and hugs from friends that just…weren’t the same.

When Lance woke up tears were leaking out of his eyes, across his temples and onto the pillow. He sat up and headed to the bathroom towards his spa treatment kit. It wasn’t anything that a mask couldn’t fix.

\--

Something needed to be fixed, readjusted on the ship? Lance honestly just wanted to sleep. Sleep was so much better, but he got up and put on his armor just like everyone else.

Coran and Allura were not very good at giving instructions Lance decided and huffed as they kept _waiting. _To figure out what was going on.

“Outta the way.” Lance snapped, pushing his way to the (what was this for again?) and twisted one knob and pressed a couple of buttons. If they didn’t know what was supposed to be done you gotta start somewhere- wait why was it turning red?

“THE CURLY FRY IS TRYING TO KILL US.” Hunk yelled and Pidge shoved her way to the device and quick as cooling sugar fixed the whole problem. Pidge was a master at bullshitting Altean science and Lance wanted to learn so _much _from her.

“This technology is so elegant!” Pidge enthused and cooed and Lance chuckled. In the distance odd glowing balls of something were drifting towards them, or, they were flying towards the drifting balls? It was decided that some samples would need to be taken. 

When they got close Lance drew his shield and the balls just softly splatted against the surface. Shiro started spouting orders about making a shelter, gathering sample and such. Meanwhile, Lance reached for a mass and grabbed it, squished it to check its consistency and grinned. This would _definitely _lift everyone's moods.

The ball hit Shiro instead of Keith. He had tried to apologize, but this started a war of flying squishies and Lance _loved _it. It was like being home on earth having wet sand fights on the beach or mud fights with Hunk’s family but the fun dimmed down when Pidge mentioned that they should get some scans done on the stuff like they had come out here for.

Which Lance was fine with. He just had to go back inside. With gravity. Keeping hold of his human form. Lance was used to holding this form for long periods of time, but Lance normally at least relaxed in the tub back home, letting parts of his body go before…pulling himself back together but he didn’t know what would happen if he did that in strange water away from everything familiar. He hadn't dared do that on the mermaid planet and he doesn't dare do it here in the castle ship.

He went to Blue’s hangar.

Her cockpit was no ocean, and the songs she weaved in Lance’s mind were beautiful, she sang songs were similar to whales that he would listen to, ancient songs about how the world became the way it was (the whales were certain that one day the waters would overtake earth as a form of cleansing so that the earth could begin a new….the narrative is more enchanting than the summary. Hunk, of course, would be appalled that the whales bleak foretelling of the world. Lance couldn’t imagine that Tefiti would care much for it either. It made for a nice lullaby though.

But blue sang old songs, about the formation of the universe and how she came to be with her siblings, and of the Altean’s. It was a nice image to have, that Blue was not some enigma that was above and beyond comprehension.

\--

“Paladins, get you your Lions!” Allura called through the ship, “We are approaching Olkarion.” Lance yawned and stretched from his pile of blankets in the cockpit of blue.

“Mornin’ Blue.” He slurred and reached out for an energy bar and a pack of water.

“Have an early morning?” Hunk asked through the coms when he got to Yellow, and lance laughed.

“Who, me? Nah. I’m just faster than you pal.”

“Okay guys,” Shiro cut in, “Let’s get going. We’ve got people to save and Galra to intercept and neutralize.”

“Got it.” Hunk and Lance said together, Pidge mumble a go sign and Keith remained silent, then they were all off.

The Planet Olakrion was just Hunk’s speed and he was in love. At first, it was a little scary that their lions had been so easily manipulated, but the Olkarions weren’t ones to take too many risks, and their tech was amazing. Where hunk could appreciate the wildlife and flowers, Pidge could appreciate the machinery and the magic-ness of it all.

Hunk even had a little notebook and everything to log all the planets he observed, doing rapid sketches while Pidge worked her magic on the tech in this place.

“Lance, my mom is going to FLIP when I show her!!” Hunk gushed over the pages and pages of alien plant life.

“Human mom or Mom mom?” Lance clarified and Hunk grinned, “Both of ‘em.”

Hunk’s human mom was a lover of nature, a true believer in Tefiti which suited hunk, an offspring of Tefiti, just fine.

“It’s just a bummer I can’t work the tech.” Hunk shared wistfully, shading one particularly interesting fungi, the cap looked like butterfly wings. “I guess pidge is just like.. a forest imp or something.”

“Yeah.” Lance thought aloud in his hammock, “Something.”

Everyone gathered for supper on the grand planet of Olkari (thought Hunk had to be prodded away from the planet looking at all of them and such)

Allura was already speaking with Ryner when he walked in, Hunk carrying a basket full of herbs and such to preserve and possibly cook with. Lance wasn’t entirely sure.

“Altean technology is something that our people observed many decophebes ago.” Ryner compliments, “We will never forget what the Altean people did for us, and we are ever so thankful that you are here now.”

Allura smiled, “Thank you. I hope our alliance will be helpful on both side.”

Ryner returns the smile, “It would be lovely if you would stay a few more days. If possible I would enjoy observing the lions. They are made of rare material. Do you know what all they can do?”

“I don’t know.” Allura admits, “When they were built it was more of an..exploration. I only know what they can do when I saw the previous paladins training, or in battle itself. There may yet be unlocked abilities within them that our current paladins can unlock.”

Lance ate his food quietly, listening to this conversation. Thinking about how blue made that wormhole that got the team to the castle of lions in the first place. He didn’t bring it up, there was probably some other reason for it. Like a timer or something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another installment is done! What do you think so far? I'm super excited to finally get this story out to all of you. Let me know your thoughts down below! I'll see you in the next chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mall, the blade and some tension between Lance and how he fits in. A wonderful mix wouldn't you agree?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Another chapter is out! I hope you enjoy it. Honestly, this section was really fun for me to make cause I love altering cannon just ever so slightly for my own benefit!

Lance was getting worried about Keith. He had worked so hard to get on his good side and now he was pulling _away _again and he couldn’t have that. So he tried to keep up with him at the mall. But he was just so _good _at losing tales. Like he was some kind of, of- EEL.

Then Pidge wanted to get money for an earth console and a game. (with a free Kaltenecker of course) Pidge starts taking off her shoes with a shout of, “Whoever gets the most money before we pool it together get first dibs on the game!!” Lance’s challenge mode was _activated._ He had spent a _long _time gathering shiny things when he was younger, this was going to be easy, but he didn’t need to let _her _know that.

So he left Pidge with the fountain gathering coins and walked to the other side, dipping a hand into the fountain, the water sort of tugged at him, excited to have him near and he wiggled his fingers, encouraging the flow of the water to scoop up the coins and he held out his shirt like a hammock and scooped the coins in the bubble of water in front of him and he grinned from ear to ear not really caring that some of the aliens were staring at him. And when he feels he has a sufficient amount from that side (meaning there are no coins left.) he walks over to Pidge,

“How’s the gathering going?” He twitters and pidge is crouched in the water, shoving handfuls of wet hand into their pockets.

“Pretty well, though I wish there was an easier way to get there, why’d you stop?” They stand up fully and look over at Lance, who’s grinning at her wiggling his eyebrows and her mouth dropped open a little at seeing the pile of coins in his shirt. Splashed through the fountain to the other side and saw no coins insight.

Things only escalated from there by robbing other fountains getting chased out of the space mall, cow Kaltenecker in tow Lance’s ears were ringing for a good few minutes when they got back on the castle he and hunk were laughing a little at the absurd situation.

“Hey, Coran?” Hunk managed to get out, “We uh, got space for our new- new guest?”

Coran hummed in thought, twirling his mustache and then he snapped his finger, “I’ve got just the place in mind! This way!” he cried, rounding on his heel and marched further into the castle.

\--

Everything settles down and somehow Lance had been appointed the Kaltenecker caretaker, not that he minded.

“So,” He drawled, “what did you learn about your knife thingy?” Lance asked petting Kaltenecker as she chewed on some of the grass.

Keith tugged on some of the green blades his eyes a bit unfocused, “Nothing worth any value. It’s made of some metal named Luxcite. And the _only _other clue I have is that the symbol engraved on it _is _galra. Or, a rune or something.”

Lance nodded taking in this meager info. He couldn’t imagine how frustrated that he must feel about all this and he sat next to Keith, leaning against his shoulder, “Hey. Look, no matter what we find out about this knife of yours; it isn’t going to change who you are to us. Red paladin hot head extraordinaire. All talent, no thought.”

Keith shoved at Lance but there was no anger behind it if that crooked smile meant anything, “And what about you, Lance? What secrets are behind the all talk and sparkle guy.”

Lance grinned at Keith and gave a light shrug, “Maybe I’ll tell you one day, wonder boy.” But today was not that day, and he didn’t feel that that day was any closer.

\--

As the way of things team Voltron had to move on and if training and saving the universe was exhausting then running from the galra non-stop was a task and a half. It was so _so _hard. Lance was barely able to hold himself together and was just grateful that in the end they managed to get Zarkon off their backs. Shiro had managed to push Zarkon out of the spiritual plane bondy-thing that he was forcing between him and the black lion but boy did he look drained.

“I just got..so _angry _that he was doing this I mentally shoved and attacked back with all I had.” Shiro had confessed to the team, “I didn’t even feel like myself.”

“It’s a good thing you managed it, Shiro.” Allura soothed, taking his hand in hers, “Because hopefully now Zarkon will let us be.”

“Well, I hope so!” Coran added, “Cause I found the perfect planet to take a respite! Lance, I found you your water planet. The water is pink though, but it should be safe.”

“Oh Coran you BEAUTFUL man,” Lance gushed, “I won’t complain about cleaning for maybe a WEEK because of this.”

At hearing that kind of praise Coran puffed up his chest, “Well they don’t call me Coran the Finding Man for nothing!”

Allura smothered a laugh in her hands, “Oh they call you that now do they?”

\--

The planet wasn’t earth, nothing ever really would be and the ocean definitely was not like his mother, but it could be a sister. She was old, but young. Hadn’t made a child yet and it didn’t seem there were any humanoid species on the planet either, but Lance was eager just to feel water again to submerge…would it be safe to just..flow? Having two types of water mix probably wouldn’t be good. Better safe than sorry he supposed as he toed at the pink edges with his toes. Hunk and Pidge were a safe distance, Hunk looking a little down that there weren’t any forests for him to get his relax in on unlike Olkarion.

Lance took the plunge and walked out about waist deep, letting his knee’s buckle gently so he could float on his back letting the water just lap at him in its unfamiliar hold.

_New _the ocean whispered _Similar. Child. Earth? _Lance smiled and reach back letting his fingers flow just a little, to mingle and send messages. Where he came from who his mother was. That sort of thing and the ocean reached and soothed his hurts mentally.

It wasn’t like his mother’s hugs. The ache in his chest opened just a little wider, a couple tears leaking out. _Sad. Sweet Child. _And the ocean swayed and hugged as soothingly as she could. The water tickled a little and it managed to get a bit of giggle out of him. Even if this water wasn't his mother it almost felt like being home again. 

He had to of been out there for a good while for Keith to come out and kick him in the foot.

“Come on, aren’t you afraid you’ll get pruny? Hunk says he found some fruit and is making a maybe-salad with it.”

Lance sighed and withdrew from the water standing back up.

“Yeah, let’s go check it out.”

\--

The day had been going well, they trained strategized ate, but after dinner Shiro seemed to bit a little…off, depressed put down. His shoulders sagged a little more and his hair a limper than usual. Lance asked Keith about it. He seemed surprised but not _too _surprised.

“Yeah, ever since Ulaz saved us Shiro’s mind has just been on the coordinates. What’ll we find there? How did Shiro escape? Who are these mystery people? And Allura’s put us on a course to… you know.”

Right. Lance had sort of…chosen not to think about it. With everything else happening, training missing his mom having nightmares that tiny little conspiracy part of him sort of just decided he didn’t wanna touch it.

“Right, what do you think we’ll find there?”

Keith shrugged, “I dunno, but Hunk is definitely gonna compare it to food.”

Lance snorts, “Probably, I’ll even give you three GAC if is happens.”

He grumbled a bit pulling the GAC pre-prepped from his pocket and handed them to a pretty smug-looking Keith.

There was no point in getting angry over some lost gac he had plenty more from his escapade at the space mall (and he would never let pidge know) what _really _boiled at him was when Shiro said he and _Keith _were going to go on this super important mission that required finess, and keith was _not _finesse.

“Keith I love you dude, you’re great but Shiro listen, this isn’t a mission to stab first ask questions later this is a _diplomatic mission_.”

Keith opened his mouth to protest but Shiro beat him to it.

“Keith’s Lion is the fastest, it can get us in and out with the smallest margin of error.”

“We don’t need _faster _Shiro, this isn’t about the Lion’s speed factor. The fact of the matter is that we’re trying to make an Alliance right? We need people on this mission who can get these people to trust us!”

“Let me guess,” Pidge cut in, rolling their eyes and pushing up their glasses. “_You’re _the guy who can do that.”

His cheeks flushed at that, “_No,_” He refuted, “I’m not Pidge, _you, in fact,_ could be a very _very _good option to get them on our side.”

“How’s that?”

“Cause of your cloaking tech, yeah it’s a bit rough but I’m sure these guys would adore being able to work with you to be able to get around Galra Patrol.”

“There’s no way I’m putting Pidge in that sort of danger.” Shiro denied, folding his arms and shaking his head. Fine. No Young people, he can work with that.

“And what about Hunk, huh? He’s a sweet guy, knows how to talk tech and fix things on the fly.”

“uh, Lance I don’t really-“

“Fine, okay. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to buddy, but there’s even Coran! He’s the oldest out of all of us with the most experience in-“

“_Lance.” _Allura coldly cut in, and he cut back to look at her, and her face was wrinkled and her hands were balled up at her side, “Your _leader _has made a decision. While it is appreciated for you to make an effort to participate this is _non-negotiable. _Shiro and Keith will go, in the _Red. Lion._”

There weren’t many times in Lance’s life that he had felt so cut into and overlooked. The ocean was very singular in how much she loved him and his Land Family had other children to discipline. This sort of disappointment and vicious tone was red hot against his already fragile idea of his placement on the team.

“Sure. Fine.” Lance bit out, “Princess gets the final say, whatever.” And he pushed past Hunk who had tried to reach out to him in comfort.

He really wanted to go home. At least people _listened _to him there.

Lance has marched his way all the way to the hanger and grabbed the polish and rag that was just inside the door. Blue prodded at him and Lance reassured her that everything was fine, he smiled up at her and he started to hum, it was an old song from his mother. The tones mixing and sounding alien, bouncing off of Blue's metal figure in ways that reminded Lance of underwater caves. The song itself was was his mother sang to him. When he would find a dead sea turtle stuck in abandoned fishing nets, or when he had been frightened by a near blow when he had gone partially corporeal too close to a boat.

Blue joined him with her own melody and he started polishing off the scuffs on her paws. He had intended to be long gone from the hanger when Shiro and Keith came by to get going to the secret base but he got so caught up in getting one of the scuff off of Blue’s paw, when he heard two sets of footsteps behind him.

He didn’t stop polishing, fully expecting them to climb into red and head out. He heard Keith mumble something to Shiro which resulted in a sigh and a mumble back. Lance kept at it making his girl nice and shiny, refusing to give Keith anything to bounce off of.

“Lance.” Keith probed, “Look, I get it. I would’ve stood up for you, but you have to understand-“

“I don’t have to understand Keith, I finally think that I’m getting somewhere on this team but it turns out no, I’m not. No one wants-“

“Lance _please._” Keith begs, his voice breaking a little bit and Lance sighs, closing his eyes counting to 10 and then turned around and before him was a very tense and a very _nervous _Keith, his eyebrows canted upward and he looked so earnest and sad and god Lance can’t really be mad at him because it _wasn’t _his fault.

“What is it?” He asked sullenly turning fully around to face him and crossed his arms waiting. Keith took a deep breath, and he took out his knife. The luxcite knife.

“Ulaz had a knife just like this one, remember?” Keith got closer, his voice low so Shiro wouldn’t hear. “And this is where he sent us. I know- I know I’m not the best pick for this mission but if I can find out even a _little _bit about where my mom came from-“

“Keith this is a terrible idea.”

“I know, but I have to _know_, Lance. Please.” And Keith’s eyes got so wide and pleading and Lance was taken aback for a second because _Keith was asking permission. _Ever since he got here no one has taken him seriously let alone asked him permission for anything, and Keith here trusted him enough to ask to break a rule that could ruin this alliance. But dammit…

“Could those eyes get _any _bigger?” Lance mutters and sighs, looking at the ground for a second and back up to Keith.

“Fine. Take your knife, but if they kill you for bringing a weapon I’ll bring you back and kill you again.”

Keith smiled, “Thanks Lance.” And gave him a quick hug before going to Red where Shiro was waiting. He looked at Lance and he gave a nod, looking proud and they both got in Red and began the start up sequence for liftoff. Lance left the hanger before it depressurized.

Lance had just gotten out of the Elevator when the power had gone out.

“Well that’s not good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what do ya'll think? I'm especially proud of the scene where Lance examples on his reasoning on who can go talk to the blade. But what was your favorite part? Let me know down below, or any other thoughts you've had! I'll see you in the next chapter!!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beta Traz! The prison made specifically to contain a super genius. Piece of cake!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI!! This chapter is later than what I've been previously scheduling. I kinda forgot to write an entire sequence I had planned. So I had to write that. And here it is!

And it wasn’t good indeed. Lance yes wasn’t exactly human but that didn’t mean he could live without oxygen. He would have to be in the water and…not be human to last longer than his friends and they were all going crazy trying to fix it. Watching Hunk and Pidge try and figure out a way to stop the power drain was absolutely heartbreaking and all Lance could really do was sit on the floor and look out at the view screen hoping against hope that maybe _just maybe _he wasn’t going to die today.

Everyone was panicking trying to get things up and running. They were checking everything, and Lance hangs back.

“Have you checked the plasma relays?” He interjects, and Hunk, Allura, and Pidge who were crowded around a console stopped their mumbling and looked up. Pidge, in particular, responded first.

“This isn’t _Star Trek _you redshirt. If you’re not gonna suggest something useful- wait. The ship doesn’t have _plasm _relays but they!! Lance, you’re a Genius!” Before turning on her heel, “I’m going to the engine room, don’t follow me and don’t bother me!!” Then dashed off to the closet Jefferies Tube to climb their way to the engine room.

Lance shrugged and headed over to his seat looking out over at the viewscreen. If his nonsense helped even a little bit to get the life support back online who was he to argue? Hunk nervously sat beside him, twiddling his thumbs, “Lance, I know I haven’t said this before but I uh, started a little project in one of the greenhouses and I’m, really, _really _worried.”

Hunk’s shoulders were hunches and he was bowed over his knee’s, “Like, what if they suffocate? What if _we _suffocate? What if-“

“Buddy,” Lance cut in, reaching out and rubbing Hunk’s arm up and down, “If anyone can keep us alive, it’ll be you. You got the samples from the Pink Planet right?”

"Yeah, and…and the oxygen output was _insane._” Hunk smiled, “I know better than to like, plant them back home but…it’s almost like having home here?”

Lance nodded, “Yeah, and Pidge’ll magic our way out of this I’m sure.”

“Still betting on fairy?”

“I think she’s a modern kind. Techo-Fey. Magic’s gotta evolve with the times somehow. How else would you get human slave if not to trick poor unsuspecting humans to sign over their rights of independence over a cracked screen?”

Hunk laughed, “As if _Pidge _would ever tell you that!”

Lance nodded and leaned back into his chair, “True, but if I know Pidge then the power will be back on any-“ And, like magic, the lights flickered back on and the vents flushed with fresh air. Lance took a deep relieved breath. “See? I knew they had our backs.”

Now all they had to do was wait for Shiro and Keith to return. Even with the power back on, Lance couldn’t shake the pit in his stomach. Even as the Red Lion came back he wasn’t feeling at ease.

Boy did he have to right no not feel at ease. Keith came back absolutely wrecked hanging off of Shiro and behind them, two Figures walked up behind and Lance stood up from his lounging position and hurried over to help Keith.

“God, what happened to you?” He muttered and he shot a glare over the shoulder at the other two goonies. “You know he’s the only red paladin we’ve GOT right?”

One of the aliens nodded their head, “We are aware. It was necessary.”

“Necessary.” Allura cut in, “Is creating an alliance in order to stop Zarkon, will you stand with us?”

The man who had spoken before with the square jaw and hair on his face, but not on his head nodded, his eyes stern. “We will, and we have a plan. We will need you to help us follow through on it.”

“... how soon?” Allura asked.

“Immediately.”

Lance was hardly paying attention at this point, trying to tend to Keith, setting him in a nearby seat and he went over to one of the compartments nearby, tapping the door open to get the first aid kit. Kolivan, the galra introduced himself was explaining the plan and saying that it required a material. Scaultrite or something. Lance took out some antiseptic and some cause, spraying some on and getting to the places that he could. Keith was trying to swat his hand away but Lance puffed his cheeks out and narrow his eyes. _I dare you to try and stop me _his glance said and Keith glared right back probably glaring something like _I don’t need you to coddle me. _

Lance sighed dramatically, interrupting the talk, “Coran. I think Keith’s too beat up. We might need a pod for this.”

Keith flushed, and he tried to get up, “I do NOT-“ but the fire that burned in his eyes suddenly got glassy and he starting listing to one side, Lance caught him. He sighed and glared at Kolivan.

“Whatever you did I hope it was worth it. Feel free to plan all you want I’m going to go put Keith in a pod- since he’s INJURED. Hunk?” Hunk turned to look at him startled, “Fill me in later, okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah of course.” Hunk agreed and Lance nodded.

“Coran, help me with this?”

“Of course, my boy!” And Coran picked up Keith and headed out.

Keith, being out of commission, wasn’t there for the lovely brief that followed after Lance and Coran carefully put him in the pod. Lance came back with Coran and Kolivan and the others were gathered in a room that had been dedicated to strategizing on long haul missions.

“Ah, Lance, Coran.” Allura greeted, “We were just about to start discussing the plan to get our Teludav project underway.

“The person we need most in order to get this plan underway is a genius engineer names Slav.” Coran started, and the other marmoran- marmorite? Pulled up schematics on the holographic projector table. “He is a prisoner in this larger prison facility.”

Pidge whistled low, “Wow, this place is dressed to the nines.”

Kolivan proceeded to describe the obstacles and worked with Pidge on how exactly to crack this egg.

Lance sat next to Hunk (who was conveniently near the back and away from Allura. Lance loved the princess like a sister but right now he wasn’t feeling too friendly) Hunk had a holo-pad out with notes scribbled on it and gently pushed it to Lance.

Hunk leans over and whispers to Lance, “When Keith is better, we’re gonna be on duty like- immediately to get some stuff from a creature called a weblum…justed wanted you to know.”

Lance smiled, “Thanks Hunk.” And turned to look over the mission. Seeing Hunk’s notes sent nostalgic waves through Lance. It was like they were back in the Garrison, sharing notes in the back of the classroom to catch each other up on whoever needed to sleep in that day. This was more than theory on flight mechanics, so Lance had to pay a little more attention this time.

The target of infiltration was a HUGE space prison… they needed the mechanic that was being imprisoned there to help build a huge Teludav… no description of the mechanic? That wasn’t right. Lance wrote ‘what does Slav look like?’ and showed it to Hunk who shrugged helplessly. Lance looked to the front at Kolivan who was actively engaging pidge with techno-babble weighing his options. Allura looked over and saw Lance’s and she shook her head, effectively telling him that any comments or questions were not wanted. That…was rude. Very rude. And Lance sighed, leaning back in his seat and doodling on the holo pad. What was the point of him being here if Allura wasn’t going to let him engage?

By the end of the long de-brief, Lance discovered, through Pidge, that he was going to be the starting runner of the whole marathon. He and blue were going to hide in a blind spot and get a map-reading of the prison through blue’s sonic mapping device thing, which worked like a charm.

All the little rover’s shut down and everyone was able to sneak in without much of a problem. Except with the minus of there wasn’t _one _prisoner, there were _two. _Lance internally groaned to himself.

“Realistically a guy as smart as Slav would be shoved as deep into this place as possible.”

“But it could be a ruse.” Shiro mused, his hand cupping at his chin, “Lance, you go for the deeper prisoner and I’ll find out who the closer one is.”

Having zoned out a bit getting ready for the short walk to the closest cell he wasn’t entirely aware that Shiro had told him to go for the _deeper _into the prison. That didn’t add up.

“I’m sorry, what?”

Shiro looked Lane dead in the eye, “You go deeper into the prison, and see if the prisoner in that cell is Slav.” Lance would’ve claimed that Shiro was playing a prank but Shiro _never _joked on a mission.

“Right. But I don’t get it, why-“

“No time,” Shiro cut off, “Let’s get going before our cover gets blown.” And they separated.

Lance followed Pidge’s directions, evading the droids and keeping an eye peeled for any actual galra guards. Pidge got the attention of the guards and pulled them away to go check out some nonsense they had maneuvered and so Lance got into the room no problem. It was dark, and he couldn’t see well into the room, but it was spartan and there was a single small bed and a basin in it with a fountain above it. Lance wrinkled his nose at that bit and turned to pay more attention to the bed when he saw the room itself was empty, either meaning that Slav was out being tortured, or he was in the bed.

“Uh, Hello?” He said into the room, stage whispering hoping his voice carried. Apparently, it worked well enough because the blanket on the sheet jumped and startled scream came from it.

“Who are you!” Shouted the bird..centipede cat, thing?

“Uh, Lance, blue paladin of Voltron. Are you Slav?”

“Of COURSE I am. I’m Slav in just about 73% of all universes where I exist. Of course, there are the universes where I was never born, or the universe where I was born a little early or a little later which influence my name. There are also the universes where-“

“Uh, sorry not to interrupt or anything, but I’m kinda here to rescue you so that we can save the universe.”

Slav, who has paused his rambling, looked at Lance narrowed his eyes. “No thanks!” He said, flopping back into bed, pulling the pathetic gray cover over him.

“UHhh….” Lance trails off, but Slav had totally checked out, “Dude, I did not drag my baby blue all the way out here just for you to _choose _to stay a prisoner.”

“Blue?” Slav asked, poking his head, “As in the blue lion?”

“UH, YEAH? How you do you think we got here? _Walking_?”

Slav scoffed, “Of course not! There is no universe where we all get out of here if you had _walked._”Slav hopped out of bed, “But the blue lion increases out chances by 80%! Let’s get going!”

And he hopped out of bed and…started making it? Or…making a sculpture from in the blanket?” Okay, maybe Slav’s been here a little too long. While Slav was busy Lance took a peek out of the door checking the vicinity, so far no guards which was good.

Lance opened up the comms, “I’ve got Slav, we can head out. Slav seems to be having a bit of a…moment to himself, how’re you guys doing?”

Silence, “Uh, guys?”

Still nothing.

Lance frowned and took a breath. Okay. This is okay, he could get through this. He could remember the way back just fine but if they couldn’t communicate getting back together was gonna be a bit of a problem.

“Perfect!” Slav called out, from his bed and clapped three pairs of his arms together, “Now we have a 2% increase of our escape plan succeeding! Let’s get outta here.” Lance can’t discern any pattern in the bedcovers, it just looked ridiculously crumpled now.

Lance gives the best smile he can, “Anything to help.” And they both ran out of the room, backtracking the way that Lance had initially came in.

They turned the corner and was about to exit the prisoner sect to an outer sector of the building. Slav made a squeaking sound and shuffled backward, “Let's go back!!” He shouted, turning to go back to the cell.

“What?” Lance practically shouted, “I thought that blanket was supposed to increase our chances by 2%!”

“It’s not the blanket!” Slav denies, “The blanket is perfect it’s…” He points, “THAT!”

Lance turned expecting to see a drone, a beast, the guy in charge but all that Lance saw was a tiny puddle in the middle of the corridor.

“The puddle?” Lance specifies, and Slav nods vigorously, “Step…around it?” Slav shook his head with just as much vigor. “Okay, why not?”

“There’s a 12% chance that I could slip!! There are even realities in which I drown because in those realities I never l learned to SWIM!” Slav’s eyes widened in desperation and clutched at Lance’s suit in desperation.

“Whoah, dude, hang on it’s not a problem. I can handle it.” He turned to face the tiny puddle, with little fanfare he reached out mentally to the small bit of water there was, heavily processed not a lot of personality but willing enough to let him do what he wanted, and he brought his hands together, then pulled them apart, also parting the water, dropping it over the sides of the bridge.

“I’m no Moses but I’d say that you’re problem is solv- AGF”

Slav had launched himself at Lance muttering to himself grabbing at his face forcing his mouth open to look at his teeth, “Avatar? No no…this can’t be one of those universes your not blue. And you would have…not a bender either at that matter you would be wearing.... Spark of light in the eyes with a…yesyesYES!! How lucky. In all of my days and analyzation, I never imagined I could be so lucky to be in THIS reality!! Yes. And an improvement of our chances!! Good lad.” Slav patted Lance’s cheek and then hopped off.

“…Okay then.” And followed after Slav who had skittered quickly across the bridge. Lance followed trying to figure out if Slav was this crazy, or if he had somehow caused this genius’s screws to come a little looser.

Lance thought they were home free but Slav, live before, gave a startled scream before hiding behind one of the bulkheads.

“What, what is it?” Lance looked around for danger no droids, guards-

“LOOK AT THOSE CRACKS.” Slav insisted, pointing at a panel that had been removed from the floor. “I can’t step on those!!”

Take a breath Lance, you need Slav alive and snapping on him and scaring him half to death won’t do anything. “What’s wrong with the cracks?”

Appalled, Slav gasped and then he gave Lance what he supposed was meant to be a scolding expression, “Oh I suppose no one cares about their Momma’s back anymore!”

“The… nursery rhyme?” Which Lance had never really paid attention to, due to the fact that his mom didn’t have a spine. And then tested at length with his land family when he found out about it, yielding no results.

“Nursery rhyme?” Slav questioned, an eyebrow raised in contempt, “I’m talking _quantum realities _here. Stepping on cracks exacerbates space-time temporal fissures! This exacerbation mathematically increases the probability that influences alternate realities to cause your mother to have a broken BACK.” Slav got so intense into this. As though Lance had failed his alternate mothers. Maybe he had? He couldn’t think about that now!

“Dude, all we have to do Is carefully walk around it. Like a game of hopscotch.”

“_HOPSCOTCH? _Why would anyone ever make a game from that? DO you _know _how that influences the-“

“Slav, focus here. We’re not looking at Alternate realities man, we’re trying to focus on-“ But Slav just kept rambling and ranting. “Slav, buddy dude you’re going to get us-“

Before Lance completed the sentence a droid came running in, gun prepped to shoot. Lance let out a frustrated yell himself and shot the droids head off with his blaster. He waited a couple of more seconds to see if anybody was going to avenge their smoking pal, but when the coast was clear Lance rounded on Slav.

“Dude, I get your thing is worrying about alternate realities and using that awesome brainpower to somehow predict things in _this _reality but right now we need to get to the _blue lion _and the quickest way there is through _this corridor _use that brainpower of yours to avoid the crack, and we’re golden CAPISCE?”

_“Pidge, I need a lock on my coordinance.” _Shiro came in through the comms _finally, _“_I’ve found a creature, I’m pretty sure it’s not Slav- **YUP**\- and I’m not entirely sure how to reach the docking bay from here._”

“Shiro, unless you have a multiarmed anxiety-ridden train wreck I’m pretty sure you’ve just got an animal or something.”  
“**_YUP_**” Came the response, Lance sighed and looked over to Slav, who was now climbing up the walls away from Lance. Oh, come _on. _

“_PIDGE I NEED A DISTRACTION.” _Shiro blasted through the comms, “_The warden's found us and he is _not _happy.” _

“_Right I’m on it!” _Pidge assured over the comms.

“Slav, come on, we gotta go!”

“Using anti-gravity to float over the cracks would be much easier!” Slav insisted, “I did the math- It would increase our chances of success.”

Lance held up his hand for Slav to pause, “Pidge, how does turning off the gravity sound? Slav says it’ll work.”

“Oh my god that’s _genius _hold on to your hats, I’m turning off the gravity in three-two-“

And Lance started floating. It almost felt like being in the water again, without the mental connection or over-looming threat of explosions and death.

Without prompt, Slav wrapped himself around Lance and they jetted out of there. Of course, they came across a couple more sentries but Lance took care of them no problem, “My my!” Slav praised, “You’re an excellent sharpshooter.”

Lance grinned, “Thanks.”

When they met up with Shiro, he was holding a dog-like thing that was twice of Shiro’s height, its mouth was open letting its tongue flap as Shiro jetted along.

“You’ve got the wardens pet yupper, Laika!” Slav filled in, “He is _not _going to be happy about that.”

“Well, it’s not like I can kindly return it to the warden, who’s trying to _kill us_.”

“**_YUP._**” Lance snickered. Thank you, Laika for the valuable input.

**_“_**_Gravity back online in 3- 2- 1!” _Pidge called out and everyone lanced safely but they still had the stretch of getting to the hanger where Blue was. Maybe there was a chance that they had managed to outrun the warden and Blue wasn’t being guarded.

The warden wasn’t there but there were quite a few droids that were VERY trigger happy. Raining down phaser bullets like it was monsoon season or something. Everyone had their shields out and Shiro was shouting orders. Pidge ran in, tasering whatever droids came into contact with their bayard. Shiro ran next using his robot arm fully powered up to chop them into pieces and Lance stood back with his blaster picking off the guys in Pidge and Shiro’s blind spots.

Lance took a quick look around for Slav but he didn’t immediately see him, which meant he was hiding or was caught and Lance was really really hoping that he was just hiding in some boxes or something.

Shiro took out the last droid, which Lance totally had, but it was fine.

Lance was catching his breath getting ready to haul everyone into Blue when the back doors burst open and there was the Warden ticked off and ready to throw hands (robot arms, this guy has ROBOT ARMS).

“You steal my Laika AND my prisoner? I don’t think so- you’re not going _anywhere_.” Pidge, of course, strikes first but her taze-grapple doesn’t really so much but piss him off more. He scowls pressing a button on his torso, and vials, that Lance hadn’t really taken note of, filled with corrupted quintessence begin to drain _directly into his neck. _The warden, already a beefcake, totally hulks out. He’s immune now to any of the electricity that Pidge’s grapple produces and easily throws Shiro across the room.

Desperately, Lance reached out mentally trying to sense if there was any water around to try and help them out but then Pidge got grabbed and the guy's hand which is covering their whole torso started to _squeeze _and Lance bee-lineed straight for him. Close combat wasn’t his strong suit but he had to do something, so he summoned his shield and bashed right into him, knocking the warden back a little. Before the warden could start to retaliate though there was the sound of an alarm, and Lance is felt the suction of depressurizing space and was out and away from the warden.

He looks up to see Slav at the control panel thumbs up at Lance. Slav starts the process of closing the door, but before he can get out of hanger one of the warden's robot arms catch Slav.

“NO!” Shiro shouts and Lance pulls out his blaster, popping up the sights.

“I’ve got this!” Lance assured, scoping in at his target. With Slav flailing so much he could only have one shot, he took a breath- and pulled the trigger.

The blast sunk into the warden's Robot arm, releasing Slav who then got sucked into space. Lance let out a shout of happiness and Shiro laughs, patting Lance on the back, “Way to go Lance. You did great!”

Lance flushed a little and laughed again, “Thanks, let's get inside I’m not sure how much longer Slav can hold his breath.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the wait was worth it! I hope you all enjoyed it! What do you guys think so far? I would love to hear your thoughts; it really means a lot! I'll see you in the next chapter! :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one in war is unscathed, Lance deals with nightmares and attempts to relax.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey!! It's another chapter!! Look!! ...I admit it's shorter than the last. Still, I hope you enjoy!!
> 
> Trigger warning: PTSD dream sequence, blood will make an appearance!

Everything had been gathered and now there was a short lull between getting the teludav built and launching the attack. Lance thought that he could get a few quiet days between all the training the saving and the lion driving.

But why did everything have to be so hard? Aside from the occasional bath or dip in a safe ocean he had had _hardly _any time to relax. And now his only respite was sleep and even _that_ was betraying him.

When he closed his eyes he could hear the countdown of the airlock, the explosion that burned his back and he is unable to save Coran. The reality was only marginally between but why these nightmares? What purpose could they possibly serve?   
Sometimes he dreamed about going home and the oceans just not... being there.

Lance had approached Coran as a last effort to understand what his mind was doing and asked him to scan for and druid magic.

“Nightmares like this can’t possibly be normal Coran.” Lance had pleaded and Coran examined the results in his machine.

“I’m sorry, but there’s just no sign druid magic. Your nightmares are 100% human-generated.” Well, maybe not quite completely human. Lance thanked Coran anyway and returned to his room.

The worst dream came after that realization. When his brain jam-packed everything together in a hellscape of torture and heartache.

This current dream had been a new spin on the airlock. He had been screaming for someone to help but no one was there. But then he saw the golden rays- his knight in red well, more like under armor but he was sweaty and handsome as ever this was the part where Keith would save Lance but things were drawing out. Something was definitely wrong when Keith looked far more distracted and scared. Lance tried to get his attention he only had a few ticks left. This would be the part where Keith would open the door and shoot the droid out into space, grab onto Keith's hands and get back into the safety of the castle but instead what happened was that Keith turned to the button and the droid, just as quick, stabbed Keith through the middle blood seeping into the fabric of his shirt. Lance tried to call out again his heart in his throat feeling the pull of the vacuum of space vaulting him out, there was no air was he supposed to hold his breath? Why couldn't he breathe? He had to Breathe!!

Lance gasped awake taking in a lungful of blessed air, even if it was recycled it was air and not a vacuum he was alive and that meant Keith was alive.

He was fine. It was fine.

He was sweating an uncomfortable amount and he really needed to just…relax. So he got up and headed to the pool, swimming trunks on and a towel to dry off with. Part of him was a little anxious and he stayed hyper-aware as it reached the floor.

The doors opened as quietly as ever and sometimes he wished they would make some kind of noise, like a woosh or some kind of hissing, maybe even a beep to signal that it’s arrived at the floor you selected but no. Everything had to be streamlined and efficient. Noise-canceling walls by design made for quiet rides in elevators.

He stepped out into the room and the lights were soft and setting a nice pattern on the floor. He smiled softly ad the familiar shapes and set his towel by the door. The room existed in a bi-gravitational state. A ladder on one end of the room to help with the transition but he wanted to try getting up there another way.

He had been experimenting with his influence over water, he could he found out, communicate with the different bodies of water like he could his mother as long as they were fairly neutral on the PH scale. Too basic or too acidic and just like any other person made of carbon wouldn’t do, but this water was just right. The remnants of a lost world. Still intact after all the millennia. It was old and soothing and sang songs to him that were foreign but beautiful. He reached up, opening himself and calling to the water and it reached back. This water was very curious about Lance the type of being that he was. Where he had come from. It was simple-minded due to how sectioned off it was from its main source but that didn’t matter. It wasn’t the vastness he needed, it was the closeness.

Soon the water engulfed Lanced and he flipped over so he could sit on the bottom of the pool, tucking his knees to his chest and allowing himself to flow just..a little. The edges of himself blurred with the water and he allowed his lungs to change just a little too so that he could keep the oxygen flowing into his body just fine.

He wasn’t sure how long he was there for, but he started doing some laps listening to the water excitedly share what stories they knew. Of the raining hot rocks, the different creatures in the depth of its being, Lance was really glad that this water was so much more than regular pool water.

The water shared how it had been taken by one of the holiest seas and blessed by a priest before being put in the pool, due to the fact he wasn’t Altean he couldn’t quite grasp some of the ideas but it was nice to know that he still had a connection of some sorts.

"Lance?" 

Lance at this point was laying on his back basking in the feeling and he blinked slowly, his mind just kind of, scattered and the water sorta gave him a push _someone is here _and Lance blinked a bit more trying to re-focus himself and look to see whoever was down there. But focusing was a little hard at the moment, but he tried his best to identify the person below him, finding any identifiers. The first familiar thing his brain latches onto was the hair. He would recognize that hair anywhere.

“Keith?” He asked squinting a bit as though that would help in any capacity.

“Yeah, Lance, what’re you doing here?”

Lance shrugged, “Just hanging out, what about you?”

Keith blinked, then looked down at himself, and was wearing his training gear, it didn’t look sweaty so he was probably heading to training, training meant he had to face the droids and his breath caught, in response, Keith furrowed his brows and he looked for the ladder walking. He really wanted to hide at the bottom of the pool and pretend he wasn’t having such a ridiculous reaction to his dream. Instead, he watched Keith climb the ladder and carefully turn himself with the gravity.

He walked along the edge of the pool and sat close to Lance on the edge, he took his shoes off and then slipping his socks off stuffed them in his shoes and he took a deep breath and dipped his feet into the pool. Lance honestly wanted to stay in the water but Keith really looked like he needed up close and personal attention.

So Lance pulled himself up onto the edge of the pool and he grunted as Gravity pulled at him, reminding him that being on Land wasn’t his normal habitat. “So…what’s up?” Lance hedged and Keith shrugged.

“I don’t know. I, I kept thinking about how…I was floating in space with Alura. We both thought that somehow we were the cause of Zarkon…I’ve come close to dying before but- but not like that.” Keith’s fingers scratched at the tile as he looked at the pool. Lance understood. Totally 100%.

Lance took a deep breath and looked over at Keith, “I know what you thought. And you did what you thought was best. But…but that was stupid selfish, Keith.” His voice wasn’t as mad as he wanted it to be. He sounded _tired. _How many months had it been and he was already so done with everything? In the ocean, nothing moved nearly this fast, or this deadly. Sure, sharks were a thing but they weren’t…airlocks about to bust you out into the void of space, or people trained to kill you on sight.

“Yeah.” Keith agreed, “I was.”

That was unexpected, he looked over at Keith and he just looked so sad, and beaten down. He was looking at the water his eyes dull with malformed acceptable his shoulders slack. Open and Vulnerable. Lance didn’t like that look on him. At all. So Lance did the first thing that came to mind- he jumped back into the pool and dragged Keith with him.

This turned into an unwinnable game of splash-back. Keith shouted somet hing and Lance shouted things back. Making largers waves every once in a while and Keith shouted, 'No using water magic!' Lance only laughed.

"You're on _my _turf now! Get used to it!" Which made Keith tackle Lance and he quickly slipped from Keith's grip, darting further away and popped his head above the water, "That's a foul Kogane!" 

Lance wasn’t sure who yielded, cause it definitely wasn’t him, but when the water settled Keith got serious again. He sighed really deep and he leaned back to float and look up at the ceiling.

“Ever since I realized I was part galra….I haven’t felt like myself. I’m not human. I’m not Galra. I’m this…thing in between.”

Lance blanched at that. Confidant Keith, Shy Keith...insecure Keith, there were so many facets to him and Lance wanted to know so so much more about him and understand Keith. and he reached out, touching Keith's shoulder tugging him back up to an upright position.

“Dude. You’re not- a _thing. _What you’re going through? Perfectly normal. I had to go from learning Spanish to English just so I could attend the Garrison, so I know what that feels like.” And he knew what it felt like from going to one thing you knew you were to a whole other thing. Having your own mother basically, push you out from the metaphorical nest and having to learn to walk on land was _hard. _But he couldn’t say that. Making this about him wasn’t fair.

“And it’s not like you’re not you anymore. You’ve just got more to discover. Life tends to be like that.”

Keith rolled his eyes, “Great _another _soul search, just what I always wanted.”

Lance narrowed his eyes at Keith, “I’m sorry am I supposed to throw a pity party for you?”

Keith took a long-suffering sigh, “And here I was hoping we could break out the blankets and icecream.”

Lance grinned, leaning back to float, “Nah. I’d just rather be in the pool, letting the water wash away my sorrows.”

Keith snorts, and nudges at Lance, in response Lance lifts his head getting his ears above the waterline. “Hm?”

“Wanna race?”

Lance let the grin creep on his face. "Uh, Hell yeah!"

“Looser has to clean the cryo pods with Coran.” Keith immediately started swimming but Lance wasn’t too mad about it, he could always get a little push from the pool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think my favorite parts of writing this fanfic are the parts that differ from the canon the most, like the whole fact that Lance would have nightmares. And of course, I had to involve Keith!!  
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below, and I'll see you all in the next chapter!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Out of the ocean, and into the bush fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! I hope you all enjoy this chapter.

The plan they had set sure had its flaws but they had no way to know what would have happened and who they would have lost. Blade members had died in the attack and a few others but worst of all, Shiro had disappeared, and they needed a new black paladin. Lance didn’t wanna try to get into the Lion. Couldn’t Allura just…. Sense some alien out in the distance, like a lottery? Lance had been chosen by blue. The _water _based Lion. It’s who he is.

Most likely it’ll be Keith. Keith was, is? Shiro’s most trusted after all. A handing down of the torch. Lance _could _have a chance. Shiro had let Lance take the lead in saving Slav after all. But Keith did have the advantage of having piloted Black before. To Save Shiro. So, if Keith piloted Black, who would switch Lions? Going on an escapade with a help wanted sign wasn’t exactly wise, or even possible.

Hunk could never handle Red even on his best and most patient days, and Pidge would rather die than leave her precious tech enhanced Lion. And if the Lions were swayed at all by their previous paladins Lance didn’t stand a chance there was more time between Keith and Shiro, more trust. It was human nature. Which leaves Lance. Always Lance.

So, Lance again he was left with the conclusion that Lance will probably switch to Red. He sighed looking up at the ceiling of his room, heart already aching with the loss. He didn’t _want _things to change. Of all the things that had changed he had finally found a sense of stability, but he was already losing it.

Lance sat up, the lights were dimmed having transitioned to night time.

He goes to sit with blue his footsteps echoing throughout the corridors and his own breathing to keep him company on the way down. When he gets to the hanger there’s blue sitting way up high, and she nudges softly at his mind. He nudges back and climbs up into her hatch. They both seem to know that their time might be coming to an end, so for the rest of the night, they just sit in each other’s company. Whispering songs to each other in soothing ripples. They both worried. For what was to come, for Shiro. For this whole mission, for his mom, Altea lost and almost forgotten, and Lance’s human family that he aches so much to be with again.

Blue comforts him, he can be strong no matter what change would come. Water was flexible after all. It could adjust no matter the circumstance. Blue was so sure of this, Lance almost believed her. It was really close.

Lance went to his pile of blankets in the back of the cockpit and set up one more night before having everything shift again.

As he closed his eyes he listened to Blue sing to him and as he drifted for a moment Lance thought he heard more than just Blue singing.

\--

Morning came too soon. Lance opened his eyes and he could hear everyone outside, mingling voices and footsteps. Lance sat up, his bones creaking and popping as he stretched, picking up his blankets and folding the blankets neatly to be carried out later when the final decision was made.

He slapped on a smile and headed out of blue.

Hunk blinked and frowned, furrowing his brows at Lance, “Sleep in Blue again?”

Lance shrugged one shoulder, “Wanted to have one last night with her just in case; can’t leave my gal hanging.”

Allura clears her throat, “Each of us will enter the black for a time, and whoever is the right fit the Black Lion will presumably activate for.”

Pidge shifted on her feet, “Allura? What if- what if NO ONE is the right fit?”

The air froze, and Allura’s eyes widened a bit in panic before relaxing, “It will be fine. If it comes to that, then I’m sure the black lion will lead us to the next Paladin.”

Lance stared at an interesting scuff on the ground. Sort of praying that Maybe Pidge or Hunk WOULD be the new black Paladin.

Pidge couldn’t really reach the pedals and Hunk immediately let the power go to his head by asking Lance to _make him a sandwich. _“Maybe if you ask nicely, I’ll do it!” He teased when Hunk came out, and he bumped into Lance.

“I’d like to see how YOU do under the awesome powers of the Black Lion.”

But Allura was next, and everyone held their breath. Allura was their Princess, what better way to increase her lineage than being the black paladin? If she got the position, Lance could stay with blue. Nothing would have to change too badly.

But she wasn’t. She came out her head held high but her mouth tight with acceptance. Lance wanted to hug her. After everything that happened having the black lion basically say she doesn’t have the stuff to be the official leader of Voltron? That had to of been a kick below the belt. Coran went next, spent 30 seconds in the cockpit and quickly made his exit. It was Lance’s turn now.

He took a small breath and put on a smile, swaggering into the Black Lion. “Hello Handsome, how’re you doing?”

No answer. “That’s alright.” He murmured sitting into the cockpit as well, placing his hands on the levers, “I’d be quiet too. Under the circumstances.” He sat in the chair, which used to be Shiro’s seat. And boy was it a seat to fill.

Nothing, “I get it. You miss Shiro, not a lot of time to mourn. Zarkon kinda went bat-nuts insane so you wanna make sure you choose wisely and… stuff.” Great Lance, what a way to talk up the lion by mentioning it’s _terrible choice in siding with a maniac. _He cleared his throat. “But it’s okay. You can sense the leader-ness in people, right? I’m sure you have nothing to worry about.” Still nothing. How many minutes had it been? Maybe just a couple. “I was able to save Slav you know, saved a planet by shoeing a hungry sea serpent from the mermaid filled waters. I can uh, safely say I’ve got a lot of living experience?” Still nothing. What more could be possibly said?

“I just…wanna go home, Black.” He mumbles, “I miss my Mom. I want the Galra to stop hurting people, I want to protect my space family. Including Keith. If, if you let me pilot you I feel like we can all get what we want. I’ll help end the war, find Shiro. Everyone wins.”

The silence weighed on Lance, heavy like being deep in the ocean. He wasn’t welcome anymore. Nothing he had said mattered.

“Right.” He muttered, standing up and putting on a smile that wasn’t quite as bright as before and headed out. “Message loud and clear.” He announced, to the others, and there was Keith so obviously Black’s choice, doing the stereotypical ‘I don’t want the position’ thing, but being the hero anyway.

“You’re up, man,” Lance announced and held out his hand to Keith, who was looking at the ground with determination. “Keith,” Lance stressed.

“I don’t want to replace him,” Keith muttered, his shoulders hunching. Oh. Lance took every thread of insecurity and homesickness and shoved it in the way back of his mind. It wasn’t time to be annoying Lance, it was time to be supportive Lance. Supporting was something he was good at, Hunk maybe was just as good but Keith didn’t know Hunk as well, so it was up to him.

Lance reached out and placed a hand on Keith’s shoulder.

“You won’t be replacing him.” He assured, “We’ll find Shiro. This isn’t just about _you _ya know, Mullet.” Lance teased, “We’re a team, and a team needs a leader, and if that leader is you, I’ll do everything in my power to make this work.”

At first Lance wasn’t sure if he had gotten through, but eventually, he nodded and stood up straighter, heading to the Black Lion, not just a minute (dobash?) into entering black his eyes lit up, and a roar echoed throughout the hanger.

\--

Lance was under no illusion that Red was nothing like Blue. Blue was compassionate, liked him spending personal time, appreciated new paint jobs and personal buffing sessions. Blue was okay with Lance sleeping in her cockpit.

Red was harsher, red was difficult, and even the mind bond between the two was strained. Red wasn’t that accepting of the change. Never going as far as pushing Lance away but never really reached out to Lance to meet halfway. Red seemingly didn’t want anything to do with Lance. When Lance had brought in his blankets from Blue to stash in the back of Red’s cockpit, Red had growled so loudly Lance felt mentally sunburned and had a migraine for the rest of the day. Okay. Got it, message received. Removing his sleeping supplies from rest and nursing his migraine in the darkness of his room.

Red reacted similarly negative when he had attempted to buff out some dents and clean up some scratches in an attempt to pamper and bond with Red. While it wasn’t as violent as the blanket incident, Lance could only stand the mental grumbling for maybe just short of an hour before he had to leave again, physically and mentally parched.

The differences between Red and Blue were only pilling up. Seeing Allura getting along so well with Blue indifference to Lance’s shaky relationship with Red made him really miss Blue, the time they spent together and how easily they clicked.

He sighed and drank some water before getting up from the couch in the common room to head to Blue’s hangar. If he could just get some respite from Red’s harshness by being with Blue’s soothing wash of affection, he could definitely handle more of Red’s aloof behavior, but when he reached her hangar Blue’s eyes were dark.

There was no affection tickling at the back of his mind and he couldn’t even hear the faint songs of the ocean.

“Blue?” He asked softly into the echoey chamber but there was nothing. Lance could only feel the licking heat of Red in the back of his mind but he didn’t _want _heat. He wanted cool rain and the soft tides of the ocean, even mentally.

“…Blue?” He reached out to her paw, placing a hand on her hoping just a little that the physical touch would spark something in his lovely lady, but again there was silence- a gaping hole where blue had once curled up gently in his mind. Where Red refused to even venture. Lance wasn’t sure if he could stand Red venturing that far. Lance wouldn’t want to swim too close to the sun.

Lance bowed his head, taking deep shuddering breaths. When he opened his eyes, there were drips on blue’s paw. Lance would have to talk to Hunk about fixing the leaky pipes.

\--

Everything got so much worse with Red. It was one thing to be stubborn and aloof in the castle of Lion’s it is a totally other situation when Red was being this way in the middle of a space battle! Lance’s head was throbbing. They were getting tossed around like a salad and they needed to form Voltron _now. _But red wasn’t having it. Red was pulling against the stick, pulling away every time he tried to get red close he _burned. _

“Red.” He stressed, trying to get into formation with the rest of the team, but it was like red was fighting his OWN battle and refused to try and help Lance. Or maybe it was just apathy.

_“What’s going on Lance?” _Keith asked, _“We need to form Voltron NOW.” _

“Dude I’m getting there as fast as I can!” He shouted over the come, and YANKED on the controls, getting closer to the others.

“Red.” He pleaded to try to reach for that feeling of Voltron, the melding with the others but Red was a BARRIER of fire and heat. Mentally preventing him from reaching the precipice, “RED!” he shouted, his head pounding, tears burning in the corners of his eyes, and finally _finally _Red allowed him through to reach the others and form Voltron with the others and help the universe like intended. Red didn’t do this gladly. Mentally coiled for a quick attack.

The temptation was so strong to reach to blue to ask for comfort but even relaxing a tiny bit Red growled, threatening something ominous. Would Red _force _a Voltron separation? He couldn’t risk it. They had a job to do.

The robo beast they were facing was large and in charge; utilizing some kind of electric quintessence. One move after the next wasn’t doing anything and the roaring in Lace’s head and ears was starting to wear on his concentration. He could feel the rivulets of sweat down his neck and his hands were aching with how hard he was holding onto the controls.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the beast draw a weapon no one else saw. With a shout, he forced Red in between the blast. There’s a shock, pain- shouting- then darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, Okay. I know that maybe a few of you feel a bit cheated at Lance not becoming the black paladin but I promise there are reasons. If you look closely at the dialogue Lance said to black there is a *very* clear reason he wasn't chosen. Also- who can resist Lion angst between two VASTLY different elements? So, I hope you all stick around for the next chapter!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recovery,bonding, and some plants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! This chapter is later than I intended to publish it!

Lance woke up on a medical bed, a monitor attached to his forehead. Coran was the only one there, and where normally he was relaxed wrinkles were furrowed into his brow at he looked over something. Maybe Lance’s life readings? Lance took a deeper intake of breath and Coran looked over, some of the wrinkles relaxing away.

“How’re you feeling?” He asks softly and Lance sat up slowly, “Easy there, easy.” Coran walked over to help Lance sit up the rest of the way, “You had a powerful electrical current run through your noggin. Had to use a cortical monitor to track the damage, couldn’t risk the pod mucking anything up. You’re really lucky you are. Anyone else and their brain would’ve fried.”

Coran’s expression turned pensive, “I’m hesitant to ask this Lance, you’re like a son to me. And you’re from earth, and earthlings are human from what I can tell and the pod _treats _you as a human but what I can’t understand...is why when that electricity hit you, it didn’t affect you like it would a human. By all accounts you should be brain dead, or have scarring at the very least.”

Lance looked at his hands, his head fuzzy, and he couldn’t quite feel his other limbs. “Can you keep a secret?” He asks softly. Not looking up from the blanket.

“Of course, Lance.” Coran reached out, placing a steady hand to Lance’s shoulder. "As our honorary Medical officer I keep full confidentiality!"

That was a comforting thought to say the least, so Lance took a deep breath, and told Coran about his mother. He murmured about the non-existence, and then meeting his mother and becoming _him. _Telling him about the first time he felt rain, when he first could talk to the whales. He told Coran about taking human form. Becoming _Lance _to a family in Cuba.

When Lance finished at least that part of his tale Coran patted him on the shoulder smiling kindly, his eyes scrunched in that way that reminded Lance of his Dad back in cuba when he was proud of Lance for doing something good, “Thank you for telling me. If you need anyone to talk to-”

“I know,” Lance interrupted. “Thanks, Coran.”

“Anytime.”

\--

_“You need to let Red know about your… situation Lance. Your quintessence is inherently aqua based, and red is fire. You two need to come to an understanding, all cards on the table. I’m sure if you’re as transparent as possible Red’ll understand.” _

That’s what Coran said, but what Coran didn’t understand is Lance didn’t _want to. _He didn’t want to face Red again. He wanted to curl up on his bed and play Kill Bot Phantasm I or help Coran clean the pods, or maybe learn a whole different language with Pidge. Train with _Keith. _ANYTHING but face the lion he was certain hated him the most.

He wanted Blue back. He wanted to share whale songs with her and float in that nice mental space that reminded him of water. He didn’t want to feel thirsty or force his shape to hold together just a couple of minutes of being in the chair of Red's control, or face the heat and fire and _burning _Red inherently was.

Why did he ever leave home?

His feet walked Lance to the hangar anyway. It didn’t matter what he wanted, he had to _try. _For the universe, for Voltron, or at the very least for Coran.

When Lance got to the hangar Red’s eyes were dark, just like Blue’s were before. Lance took a breath, looking up at red, waiting for any signal.

Lance waited. And waited. Was Red REALLY going to force him to make the first move?

“Why don’t you like me?” He found himself asking to the sleeping Lion. It was a whisper, and the words made him feel numb, “I’m not Keith.” He thought about the garrison, his disappointment from not getting fighter class, but the air was different from the ocean. How could anyone expect him to know how hard to pull a lever to make an earthly vessel move in the _air_?

_The only reason you’re here is because the best in this class dropped out. _

Which was fine. Because Keith left, giving lance the opportunity to become more. Water had the tendency to fill empty spaces to fit whatever shape happened to be left behind. This time was different. Black had _chosen _Keith. Leaving Lance to take up his place again. Lance had come to that conculsion himself he had accepted and made his peice with it so why was it so _hard _to let it go? Is that all Lance would ever be? Letting go of his own feelings to fit the shape that people need him to be? 

Water_ could _fill any space possible, but if that place was a furnace all water does is evaporate.

“We’re stuck with each other.” Lance mutters, crouching down to hug his knee’s, pressing his forehead against his legs, “So you just have to put up with me until Keith comes back.” The words felt phony as soon as he said them. He felt empty, and alone.

There was a nudge. Lance didn’t react, and the nudge came again. Mentally it felt like a cat nosing at your hand for attention but Lance was tired of trying. Everything he had given to Red, he had refused. What point was there to reach again if he was only going to get burned.

_Water. _Red hissed, softly, and distastefully and Lance nodded, apathy washing over him like an unwelcome net, trapping him preventing him from wanting to get up and leave, from saying anything in his own defense.

_Your thoughts? _Red nudged. And Lance wanted to laugh, but all that came out was a huff. After all this time Red wanted to hear his thoughts? See his memories? Oh sure. He would give them all right, vindictiveness boiling away. He pushed memories of oil slick bursting into flames on his mother’s surface. The aching pain of sunburns on his fresh skin when he first had human form. The anguish the whales sang of brother and sister being hunted and used to create oil for flame and food.

He pushed memories of inhabitable ocean depths with burning lava making the water boil at every point it touched.

Red startled at the onslaught, his presence receding, but returning more tempered. Less volatile and roiling like before. Red was almost…soft as he roamed around in Lance’s memories searching and feeling who he is. Like taking all the evidence at a tribunal before deciding the sentence.

He remembered feeling so angry at humanity for hunting the fish he used to play with, capturing the dolphins he would laugh with. The loss and blood spilled for gluttonous reasons. He wanted to flood them all. His own mother had given him the form of the people he had hated the most and guided him to people to raise him. The sun that iched and burned the fires that braised and burned and the literal trash that laid _everywhere. _Lance was a total demon at first to his Land family. The air was difficult to adjust to. Walking was a trip but mostly it was the fire and heat he hated the most. And Cuba was _hot _all the time.

He expected Red to leave again. Leave Lance empty, and all Lance could hope for was an apathetic working relationship but instead Red shared his OWN thoughts to lance, memories at the forefront for Lance to examine.

This mental world was similar to Blue’s and it felt like being in two places at once, he could feel his feet on the ground but at the same time he floated in the mindscape shared between paladin and Lion, and Red stood before him, physical, and animal like. Looking at him and on his four legs headed over, and thudded Lance in the stomach with his head.

The touch sent a gentle stream of memories to Lance, the warmth of a fire in the middle of a cool night, an Altean, Alfor, adamantly sharing stories of the stars with the other paladins. Candlelight in cluttered studies to light the way.

Warm food being cooked and shared.

The feeling of affection towards one another. The heat of battle and rage for the right to live and protect.

The red rage of.._protection _and _indignation _for- for _Lance. _

_‘A child of water and my quintessence of fire are hard to connect.’ _Red clearly spoke and conveyed. Starring up at Lance, _‘My Former paladin’s had a fire in them that allowed easy connection. Alfor was adamant and a dreamer and Keith threw himself at every obstacle. We must work together. We have no other choice. But that does not lessen my acceptance. Let us show them how powerful fire and water can be together.” _

He felt like he felt he could cry; his throat was thick and eyes watery he sniffled as he nodded. “Okay.”

\--

Just because he red were on better terms, didn’t mean all of the problems were fixed. Shiro had been found and that threw the last month or so into total chaos. Lance thought that Keith would want Red back. Black didn’t seem to trust _Shiro _anymore which was weird. In the end, Shiro went back into the black Lion due to duress of the team and Keith left for the blade of Marmora. Which was fine. Keith needed to do his own thing, explore his own culture…maybe find his mom. They could talk via space e-mail. It was fine. Really.

Lotor and Allura were flirting and building ships that Lance couldn’t even begin to understand, he could barely convince the princes to stay an evening away to play a game of monsters and mana. Slowly surely it felt the whole ship expect the lions and the mice, were drifting out of his reach.

He spent most of his time in the pool, his room, or with red. There wasn’t a lot of battling to do just yet and it was a lot of performance. Which was hecking fun if you asked him he got a hoot and a half out of it and honestly being around so many people gave him a burst of energy. (which totally made him an extrovert which did NOT help his situation back at the castle).

Of course, he busied himself with doing laps keeping in shape, taking care of Kaltenecker, making appearances at the various food times. He sat in bed with the communications pad that pidge had made for him, _“It also connects to the data streams of the castle and if I so choose, the stuff on my laptop. Ask for something if you need it okay, otherwise have fun.” _

Not that it was a lot of fun it was a LOT of science and magic mumbo jumbo that Lance had no hope of understanding. There were some instructional videos that were partially corrupted but there WAS a cache of Altean movies and literature. Not that he understood a word of it. Which then lead to Lance going to the holodeck and found that for some reason the SAFTEY WAS OFF.

He had been learning animals and stuff all good and nice (having of course absorbed some concepts of a dialect or two from the pool) but this program was _brutal _and the creature a Flexturgen or something like that chased Lance around the room and managed to get a hit on him knocking him into the wall and bruising some of his ribs. Lance had shut off the program with the emergency override.

He was so tired of things on this ship trying to _kill him._

“Hunk buddy.” Lance begged at supper, “Please tell me that fixing the holodeck is on the docket to get fixed up because if I have to get bruised ribs for getting the word Flex-tur-gen wrong I don’t think I’m gonna make it.”

“Ahm,” Coran cleared his throat, “It’s actually Flix-tur-g_in _Lance, but good effort!”

Lance rolled his eyes but nodded, “Right right, Hunk? Buddy?”

Hunk, who had started talking with Pidge about something while Lance was talking stopped and looked over at Lance, “Sorry Lance, I’ll put it on the to-do list but that’s a pretty long list as it is and…”

“It’s okay,” Lance assured even though that tiny part of him screamed that NO it was not okay, he still smiled, “I’ll just put my armor on next time. It’s the most fun I’ve had in a while.”

Hunk grinned and busted out a laugh and everyone started talking amongst themselves. Lance poked his goo around on his plate.

With not much to do and not really feeling like swimming, he headed for the Arboretum. It had been months since Hunk has started his pet project, they had gathered different plants and things to grow. Hunk had managed to start a garden that he would occasionally use to supply himself in the kitchen.

Mostly the arboretum was a temperate climate to attempt to upkeep as much life as possible. Hunk was looking to make expansions that allowed for other forms of plants to survive. Like plants that’s need drier climates or those that require specific PH soil balances.

Lance took a moment to appreciate some color-changing flowers as he gently breaths on them. Enjoying the fluctuations from yellow to blue.

“Oh, Hey!” Hunk greets, now wearing his gardening gear, a watering can in one hand and another a bucket full of..well Lance couldn’t really see what was in there but he was sure it was something to take care of the plants.

“Thought you would be pulling some laps at the pool.”

Lance shrugs, “Wasn’t really in a swimming mood. I would train but training with the droid isn’t really fun.”

Hunk nodded, and watered some of the plants, reaching out and they reach back. He walked over to one plant and took out what looked to be a dead fish, and threw it up into the air, and one of the tree-looking things _snatched _it out of the air.

“Nice catch,” Lance muttered and Hunk grinned.

“She’s not even all grown up yet!” And they moved deeper into the Arboretum.

“So has Keith gotten back to you from all the messages you’ve been sending him?” Right. Keith. _That’s _who he’s been meaning to not think about. Thank you very much Hunk.

“Nah.” Lance shrugs, taking the watering can and lightly watering the soils in the garden section. He had done at least this bit a few times before. “I don’t really blame him. He left in such a hurry, wanting to learn more about being Galra, Shiro having come back. Neither one of them wanting to usurp the other when it came to Black. It’s all a mess. He’s probably just figuring it out.”

Hunk gave Lance a long look. “What?” Lance said, handing back the can, “I’m _fine._”

“Sure, sure.” Hunk placated, “Just don’t want you isolating yourself it all. We don’t want a repeat of Earth History.”

“I plan to flood China _one time _and you never let it go!”

“Your Mom gave you a human body to _empathize _with us, not to destroy us. Besides, think of the little kids.”

“Yeah yeah. That’s my mantra got it.” Hunk smiled and patted Lance on the shoulder, “Come on, I’ve got a few more plants to feed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it! I know there's like, a HUGE time skip in the middle of this story and but due to the fact that Voltron is 8 seasons long and I am a singular person attempting to traverse the many episodes and arcs while doing my own thing. THAT BEING SAID. Chapter 8. It is not written yet, I have an outline! But I need a couple or three weeks to publish it so please have patience! I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments. :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PTSD sucks, Olkarion is in trouble *again* Lance and Shiro start to build a bromance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO EVERYONE. OCTOBER WAS A MONSTER TO HANDLE. Like I'm not joking October is apparently the month that schoolwork piles up miles high so along with figuring this chapter out I was also doing school, but I'm back and we're back to our regular scheduling!

War waits for no man, and that meant that training had started back up in full force. Lance, of course, was still struggling with nightmares, that wasn’t anything new. He _was, however,_ having trouble concentrating in the training room because yes the room was isolated and safe however, the adrenaline running through him was real and couldn't tell the difference. What made it all so _so _much worse was the fact that Allura had set up the drones to be particularly aggressive and the laser firing was really getting to him. He was _not _in the state of mind to be in battle mode and nothing in his brain was turning off.

Normally he could just zone out and focus on the shots but right now everything was so quiznacking _real _he wanted to scream. Nothing his eyes landed on would come into focus. He attempted to keep up with the rest of the team as she gave callouts of the locations for the various positions of the drones. He pulled off his helmet trying to get his breath it was _way _too hot in there. The lights were dimmed and Lance couldn’t see too far in front of him. Lance couldn’t remember what the object was. To storm the base? To grab a flag? Takedown all the drones? Wait, maybe they were supposed to save- a flash charge went off right next to him scrambling any and all thought he had been attempting to straighten out.

Everything thing was meant to be simulated but Lance was knocked off his feet slamming his head against the floor. Suddenly he wasn’t in the training room anymore he was in the balmera crystal room with Coran- oh god was Coran okay? His breath came short and his ears were clogged with some kind of roaring- was that blood just pumping through his ears? Or were they screams? Lance needed something he could rely on in close combat- and he felt his bayard _change. _

“Lance?” Shiro asked but that didn’t sound right Shiro was on the other side of the castle, how could he be here right now? Oh god were Galra on board right now- He tried to sit up, holding tight to his bayard ready to fight- But Shiro help him firmly by the shoulders.

“Whoah Lance, it’s okay. You’re safe. Do you remember the last thing that happened?”

Lance looked up at Shiro and he was calm, a little sweaty but there wasn’t any blood. Or scuff on his suit. “Explosion.” Lance supplied, trying to strain his ears to listen for footsteps.

“Right, the flash grenade.” Shiro said, “You hit your head when you fell. We have to take you to the med bay. You're safe. Everyone is safe.”

“But Coran-“ Lance scrambled and Coran popped into view.

“I’m alright Lance, let’s get you fixed up.”

“Breathe slowly Lance, and take it slow standing up.”

Lance held tight to Shiro’s forearms pulling himself up feeling a little woozy. “I…shouldn’t of taken my helmet off,” Lance mumbled and Shiro chuckles.

“It’s alright Lance, it happens.”

Lance nodded.

"I'm gonna need you to power down your bayard, buddy." Confused, Lance looked down at his hand and he was holding like…like a sword?

"Lance we have to get you to Medical. You hit your head pretty hard and might have a conclusion, you need to power down your bayard.”

He nodded at Shiro, “Kay.” He said dispelling the sword into that place wherever bayards go when they're not needed and was led away into Coran’s care.

One sleep in the pod later and Lance was falling into the warm arms of Hunk.

“Hey there Buddy!” Hunk grinned, “I’ve got some stew waitin’ for ya.”

Lance smiled tiredly back at hunk, “You know just how to make a guy feel better…so how bad was it?”

Hunk hummed in question as they walked, “Your concussion? It was….not as bad as it could have been; Allura felt awful since she designed the course.”

“Hey, it wasn’t her fault. I was the one wigging out.” Lance said sitting down at the table the mice already there with the cooling stew.

“Yeah, what happened?” Hunk asked, going to the stove and putting an Altean Esque kettle on.

“I dunno,” Lance mumbled taking a bite of the stew, it was kind of like sweet potatoes and strawberries. The broth was spicy that was great, “But it was like I forgot where I was. Like I was in an actual battle rather than in training.”

Hunk whistled in astonishment and the kettle started to whistle, “Man that must of sucked, I’m glad that Shiro was able to help you outta that. Any longer and you might have started fighting one of us.”

Lance shrugged and kept eating the stew. Thinking over the events, trying to find someplace where he should have been able to stop whatever had happened to him. But it all happened so slowly, but fast at the same time.

“So my Bayard turned into a sword?”

Hunk grinned and nodded, “Yeah. An Altean broadsword. Coran wouldn’t stop talking about it for ages.”

“I’ll have to try and get my bayard to do that again, I didn’t get a good look at it when I was all..” Lance waved his hands around his head.

“In the middle of a flashback?” Hunk supplied

“I guess?” Lance had never felt like that. Not even at the start of having a human form.

“Shiro talked about it while you were in the pod.” Hunk offered Lance a cup of tea. Lance gratefully took it in hand letting the warmth leech into his palms.

“I didn’t know that Shiro had flashbacks.”

“He called it PTSD.”

Lance hummed taking a sip of the tea and then ate some more of the stew. He and Hunk idly spoke as Lance finished eating and bid each other good night. Hopefully nothing else would go wrong in the coming future.

\--

That was a dumb thought. Why was he EVER complacent in this forsaken castle ship? Allura totally enchanted by Lotor. They went some space Library of Alexandria and the Castle ship was _utterly_ out of commission. Worse than the feedback short out from the blade of Marmora.

Coran Hunk and Pidge were panicking, but Lance knew that they could survive this, “Hunk- buddy hang on this isn’t a live or die situation, right? Your arboretum, it makes plenty of spare Oxygen right?”

Hunk, who had been floundering over tools stopped and looked up, “Right- right my garden! It’s got plenty of trees and grass in there to help with the atmosphere!”

“Then we need to get to the arboretum.” Lance insisted and Hunk nodded, going to tell Pidge and Coran what the new plan was.

Lance went over to Shiro to tell him the news and Shiro smiled, “It’s a good thing to have such a green thumb on the team, huh?”

Lance chuckled, “Yeah, how lucky are we?”

Climbing through the Jefferies Tube was a fun time for the four of them, Coran lightening the mood by telling stories of the days he would set traps in here for his grandfather to come across. Little pranks like paint or perhaps a startling noise or an image of his great-aunt naked in the hot springs. (that last one was a little ew) but it was enough to let them forget about the impending possible doom.

The arboretum was dark but had biolumenescent plants giving a soft ambiance. Pidge and Hunk started talking about the various plants Coran tagging along. 

Some time passed and Lance and Shiro had gotten deep into a conversation about bayards and what was possible after the whole ‘turned it from a blaster to a broadsword’

“Like, do you think I could make double pistols? A water gun? Maybe I could even try and copy Pidge’s taser!”

Shiro grinned, “I dunno about Pidge’s weapon, but I think if anyone could figure it out, you could.”

For the first time since Keith left he felt a warmth in his heart, he was going to respond but the light suddenly came back on and the speaker crackled to life.

_“Hello?”_ Allura’s voice filtered through, _“Is everyone okay?” _

Pretty much everyone cheered, “Yes Allura!” Coran Assured, “Everyone is here and accounted for! We just moseyed over to Hunk’s garden and had a bit of a breather after the power went out!”

_“Oh thank goodness you're safe! Come on up and I’ll explain everything!” _

Explaining turned out to be a hell of a lot harder than Lance anticipated because letting a lion _attack you for the sake of knowledge _is not Lance’s idea of a fun time.

\--

Lance yawned walking in his pajama’s to the kitchen to a warm cup of not-hot-chocolate and he found Shiro, holding his head in his hands and shoulders tense, like springs about to pop right out of his skin.

“Shiro?” Lance called softly and he flinched, turning around to take a look at Lance and his eyebrows were knitted together and the corners of his eyes, strained.

“Lance?” He croaked and Lance nodded coming closer.

“What’s wrong?” Lance asked, and Shiro tried to smooth his expression over.

“It’s nothing.” He obviously lied, “A little headache, that’s all.”

Lance snorted, “It doesn’t look so little to me. Have you taken anything?”

Shiro shook his head, “Space doesn’t exactly have Excedrin.”

Lance took a glass from the cupboard and filled it with some water. “At least drink something, hydrating can help. And we can talk to Coran about finding some space medicine.”

Shiro took the water with a smile. Before Shiro could take a drink the emergency lights flared up. Shiro and Lance took one look at each other and headed for the elevator.

“Coran, what’s the situation?”

_“Kolivan and Keith have arrived!” _Coran shouted through the comms, _“Keith is in pretty bad shape we’re going for a pod right now, no need to worry!” _

Shiro and looked at Lance and Lance looked at Shiro. Worrying was now at the top of their lists.

By the time they got to the medical bay, Keith was already in a pod and Kolivan was briefing Allura.

“… trouble on Olkarion.” Lance managed to pick up, he would have paid more attention to the conversation but he caught Keith and he looked _wrecked _his suit was torn there were bruises all over his body. There was some kind of gas on the side of his torso and _just what the hell. _

It had been so long since he had heard from Keith and the first thing that happens when he comes back? In a pod. Lance wanted to wait for Keith to come out but he knew it was gonna be a while. And he wasn’t going to count on Kolivan to explain. He was going to go to bed, and maybe figure out how to use that broadsword.

Keith was still out when Lance reported for the breakfast/debrief. Olkarion was having a crisis and they needed them back. Pidge and Hunk were huddled over a pad talking about the virus infecting the forest and Lance, not being techy or born from the earth decided that he was better off not being there to distract them from making a game plan.

The broadsword was vastly different from his blaster, both were an extension of his arm but the blaster was a distance weapon, the broadsword felt like a _literal _extension of himself. And his balance was _way off _because of it.

The droid, on level one, was kicking Lance’s ass. The droid could parry as well as Lance could but he had to learn how to _hit _things and slice at his enemies to be more efficient in this new style.

Lance was just about to give up, sweating and sticky, but he wasn’t a quitter. He would try _one more time _and readied his stance to engage the droid again.

“That’s not how you’re supposed to hold a sword.”

Lance blinked, that- he was already? “Keith?” Lance asked, turning to the voice and there he was, standing in the blade of Marmora uniform and he had an eyebrow cocked upwards.

“Yeah?”

“You uh, you’re still here.” Lance pointed out swinging his sword. Keith had been pretty distant, receiving messages from Lance but not really responded. Super secret spies can’t really risk getting transmissions tracked back to them so he got it, but he kind got the impression that Keith didn’t want to get attached to Voltron again. In case it interfered with his galra enlightenment travels or whatever.

Keith furrowed his brows physically putting the words together and his expression was regret. His shoulders dropped his eyes softened. Making Lance feel bad for saying anything at all.

“Kolivan is still talking with Allura, catching her up on things that have been happening behind the scenes but Lotor…”

Lance scoff hoisting the sword up over his shoulder, “Yeah, Lotor had been…taking up Allura’s time a lot. They’re close. Being two of the last Royal Alteans.”

Keith rolled his eyes, walking closer to Lance and he pulled his dagger out, the small blade glowing and morphing into the larger blade.

“You’re not standing right, you’ve got to spread your feet a little more, lower your core of balance.”

Lance did as asked wiggling his feet a bit wider and looked up at Keith, “Okay, what now?”

Keith looked him over and he put away his own sword, “You have to have a good starting stance, here-“ And he walked up and _behind _Lance. He reached over and gently grasped Lance’s wrists, lowering them and his face was _right next _to Lance’s ear. “You gotta keep your body low you know, it’s all about..” And Lance was no longer listening because HOO BOY had he wanted this for a VERY long time.

Eventually, Keith, of course, had to move away from Lance and he pulled his own sword again, “Ready?”

Lance swallowed thickly getting his head out of the hormonal fog. Keith, thankfully, took it slow to teach Lance the basics.

“It’s different from a gun,” Keith explained after he knocked the bayard from Lance’s hand for like, the twelfth time? “You gotta keep your grip firm enough to hold onto your bayard but loose enough to go where it takes you.”

Lance and Keith kept on and eventually they were laughing, “come on Lance, is that the best you got?”

Lance parried but it was sluggish and he nearly tripped over his own feet, “Come on babe if I gave you a gun you would struggle just as much!”

Keith was about to make some kind of response, but Kolivan walked into the room.

“Keith, get ready to leave in 20 dobosh’s.” Keith stopped and hesitated before nodding.

“Sure thing.” He said and Kolivan headed out.

That _so _wasn’t fair. He wanted Keith to stay longer but…but war doesn’t wait. Even with the Emperor of the Galra on your side. Enemies were still everywhere.

“Make sure to stay in contact this time,” Lance says with a smile, patting Keith on the shoulder.

Keith smiled back and grasped Lance’s hand in return. “I’ll do my best. I’ve got a mission coming up quick, one of our blades had gone MIA I’m supposed to find her, see what went wrong.”

Keith bumped shoulders with Lance, “And you better keep up with the sword practice. Ask Shiro for some pointers, he was into Kendo back on Earth.”

“Of course he trained in kendo, what else is he, a spy on top of that?”

Keith Laughed, “I don’t know, Shiro doesn’t tell me _all _of his secrets.”

Lance saw Keith off and his heartfelt warm but aching, he didn’t really have much faith that Keith would stay in contact. He walked over to the training room to find Shiro training on his own.

“Hey, Shiro!” Lance greeted and Shiro waved back, even if Keith wasn’t going to be here, and even if Pidge and Hunk were off on their own thing, and even if Allura was caught up in Lotor Lance wouldn’t let that get to him. He had the pool and, for now, he had Shiro.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this! We're now in the later half of this series!! What did you think? Let me know down below!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olkarion has a Virus, Lance delves back into the Astral plane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another chapter is out! I was at a college conference presenting some research that I had done as a school project and couldn't post this on Sunday, apologies evreryone!

The situation on Olkarion was bad. _Really _bad. The forest had been infected and was turning on it’s own people and it was taking everything they had to hold it off.

“Judging from the data I’m getting it’s an invasive plasma.” Pidge said, and that was enough of a cue to form Voltron. Which, in hindsight had been a very poor plan. They got knocked back into the infected part of the forest and before Lance could even blink Red was locked up in the pulsating purple appendages of the infected forest. Everyone else was just as locked up too, and it turned head running back at the city.

“We have to tap into the quantum energy that bonds of to Voltron- it’s the only way to drive out this virus!” Pidge shouted from their end of the comm.

“Yeah, but-“

“The bayards!” Allura interrupted Hunk, “They amplify the life of force of their paladin! If we use all our bayards, it could create enough power to drive out the virus!”

“It’s worth a shot.” Lance agreed and reached for the bayard on his belt. The alerts blared to life and the cockpit jerked with sudden movement. They were being pulled up and were probably being pulled somewhere they did not want to be.

“Ready?” Lance called through the comms getting his bayard out, “Three- two-ONE!” and Lance slammed his bayard into the slot in Red.

Everyone else must have done the same because suddenly Lance wasn’t in read anymore he was standing on some sort of platform and energy was just _everywhere. _Everything was too loud and too quiet at the same time.

He took this chance to look around and everyone was there except..

“SHIRO?” Lance shouted, which started everyone else to shout for Shiro. Eventually Shiro did appear to the relief of everyone, one by one everyone was starting to leaving this plane till eventually Lance was the last person standing along with Shiro.

_“Lance!” _Shiro called out, _“Lance you have to listen to me-“ _

But before Lance could hear the rest of what Shiro had to say he was booted out of whatever it was he had entered, it was like waking up from a long sleep. It was sluggish and he couldn’t quite get his eyes to open.

_“Guys! We’ve got incoming!” _Shouted Pidge and Lance’s adrenaline spiked and he was up and alert.

Right before Lance’s eyes, the ship that had been pulling it in was incinerated off the face of the planet. Man that Olkarion weapon packed a PUNCH!

Before Lance could get a breath in to laugh at the absurdity of that whole transaction the vine-beast was on the move again.

“Time to make some salad!” Lance cajoled to everyone and he started to move read for a back swing. Red was purring nice and loud in the back of his head. Lance had expected Pidge and hunk to move back so Lance could lance a hit but everything jerked to a halt.

_“What’s going on?” _Allura shouted over the comms.

_“The thing is trying to absorb us!” _Pidge responded.

_“Is anyone free?” _Shiro called out and everyone else started filing denials but Lance wasn’t, _he _had free movement.

“I’m good! I got this-“ and Lance grabbed his bayard for the second time, shoving it into the key slot and twisting it, red roading to life as a flaming sword materialized in his hand.

_“You gotta keep your grip firm enough to hold onto your bayard but loose enough to go where it takes you.” _

With a shout Lance forced red forward, first cutting the vines off of Voltron in a down swing, he didn’t even need to do any callouts because it was like Voltron _knew _because the whole bot moved forward as Lance came back for the blistering upswing.

The beast itself burst into flames, collapsing in on itself ashes floating away on the breeze.

_“Good job Lance!”_

_“That was great!”_

Lance grinned and soaked up the attention, for a moment he thought he could feel Blue’s approval.

Clean up was going okay and Voltron was put into neutral (‘_It’s not ‘neutral’ Lance, we put Voltron in a on sentry mode, that way we can just slip back into the lions if there’s any more of the virus we need to take care of.’) _Lance shrugged at Pidge and looked at the sunset on Olkarion. It was really _really _peaceful here. Incredibly so.

“Hey, Shiro?” Lance asks, looking at his friend and Shiro, who had also been looking at the sunset looked back.

“Yes?”

“That uh, void energy place we were in.” Lance said, stretching his arms and back as he stood up from sitting on Voltron’s shoulder, “You were saying something and I couldn’t understand you. What was it?”

The confusion written on Shiro’s face felt like a sinking stone in a lake, “I don’t know.” Shiro said, a little lost, “It got dark there for a second. I don’t really remember what happened, but I’m glad it worked despite that. You did good.”

“Thanks.” Lance responded but Shiro wasn’t listening anymore, looking out at the sunset again.

His stomach felt hollow and he looked Shiro over, something had happened in that place. Someone had tried to talk to him and it _sounded _like Shiro, but Shiro didn’t remember. He took a breath and forced himself to look away and take in the sunset again. He had to find out what that place was, how to get back to it, and find out what was going on.

\--

Research on the lions weren’t getting Lance anywhere. Grilling Coran about it had only revealed that there had only been _one _set of Paladins before Lance and company had arrived, meaning there wasn’t a lot _known _about them in the first place. He was _certain _that the answers to his problems would lay the Lions, because it had been the Lions they connected with that allowed Lance to talk to whoever it was in that void place. 

Lance looked at the notes he had been taking on his pad. Asteroid, weird alloy magical beasts projecting knowledge and a soul bond between man and beast. Quintessence, an _otherness _that felt as old as it felt new (Coran’s words) but Lance was _sure _that there was something super important that they were missing. Powers not yet unlocked or levels of communication not yet breached. If the lions were anything like his mother, he just had to learn how to listen.

He had sent a coded message to Keith weeks ago asking for some kind of help with research but no response. It’s fine, it’s cool. He can stick with the resources he had here.

Allura for sure would know how to help, with her knew Altean knowledge. It was just getting her attention away from Lotor long enough that was the problem.

“Allura.” Lance asked one evening as Allura looked over some holographic schematics of strangely shaped ships. “Do you… have any information about the Lions bond?”

“Are you having trouble with Red, again?” She asked abruptly dropped her hands her attention fully on Lance worry creasing her face.

“Kinda,” He said, shrugging, “I just…I just need to know if there is some way I can... connect deeper. I wanna communicate as smoothly as possible.”

Allura’s expression softened and she placed a hand on Lance’s shoulder squeezing lightly, “I’m sure your bond with Red is strong, Lance. Over these last few weeks I dare say you’re working better together than Keith did when he was in your place… But I can give you some readings on Altean meditation and a centering device if it’ll help.”

“Yeah. That should be fine.” Lance smiled back at her, “Thanks ‘Llura.”

He went to the hanger where all the lions got their nap on and Lance made his way from Red to Black.

_What are you up to little ripple? _Red inquired in the back of his mind, breathing soft relaxing warmth over his uneasy thoughts.

_‘I…I want to see if I can go to the Astral plane again. By myself. There’s a question I need an answer to.’ _

Red got quiet, but there was no disapproval. Which was enough of a go ahead for Lance.

Black was a lot bigger than he remembered. Swallowing thickly he put the items Allura gave him down. The ‘centering device’ floating above a small platform and turning different shades of pastel color.

“Okay.” He said out loud. “You took me somewhere to tell me something. I- I need to know _for sure _what it was Black I- I’m not Shiro, or Keith. But-‘

The world shifted from under his feet and his vision blurred his breath getting knocked from his body and he felt like he was standing on a very small stool, balancing dangerously with nothing to catch his fall.

He as used to feeling weightless and like his body was bigger than himself but this was like…being empty.

_Lance? _A voice called from far away,

‘_Shiro?’ _Lance called back looking around at the expansive world around him spreading out farther than the eye could see, he didn’t dare take a step further. ‘_Shiro where are you!’ _He called out if he could see- or maybe if he could get something other than his _name. _

_Don’t trust him Lance. _

Shiro’s voice called back, Lance turned around in place, “Don’t trust who? Lotor?” but who else could it possibly be?

_Lotor and the- the other me. _

The voice was getting clearer and Lance was trying his best to keep his mind from straying, trying to keep himself in the moment, _“I don’t understand Shiro, please! I can’t even see you in this place-“ _

_I died Lance. _His heart froze, _Warn the others, get Allura to- _

The world lurched, and Lance was knocked from the Astral plane and gasped awake jolting to his feet his hearting pounding, _danger danger where is the danger- _but no one was around. What was going on? The Shiro he had gotten to know wasn’t even really Shiro at all. But wan’t he? Didn’t this clone of Shiro deserve to have a say?

He had to tell the others, they had to come up with a plan. If this Shiro really was a clone and a pawn for some plot they had to try and do what they could to save their friend, and the Shiro that was locked up in Black’s head.

He ran to the bridge breath burning at his lungs he tried to get them to understand. He couldn’t find Allura as usual and she was probably with Lotor _at that second _doing whatever the sleezebag was plotting.

He tried to find Hunk and Pidge and tell them, but they weren’t listening, having some kind of heated debate over some science while fixing up some of the plasma relays and just barely spared him a glance. Coran. Coran would _definitely _believe him about the whole lion thing and hearing Shiro in his head all he had to do was-

“Lance.” A very familiar voice greeted behind him and he froze on the spot, he took a breath and turned around smile on in bright display. 

“Hey buddy, what’s up?” This was still Shiro. The same Shiro he trained with, and played Monsters and Manna with. The guy who got headaches and shared stories of earth with Lance. He wasn’t dangerous…yet.

“Lotor and Allura wanted everyone to gather on the bridge. There’s a big announcement.”

\--

The ships were supposed to collect _quintescnece. _

“Allura, I don’t think-“

“It’s alright Lance, I’ve gone over the schematics it’s perfectly safe.”

He shook his head and eyed Lotor behind her and his stare had a _lot _of weight to it. Lance wasn’t going to back down. Allura had the right to _know. _

“It’s not about the ships, I’m sure they’re safe but I went down to the lions and I really need to let you know that-“

“Lance.” Allura cut off, her eyes harder now, “You can tell me after we come back from the test run. It can’t be that important.”

_It can’t be that important._

And then they _left. _

Lance felt like he wasn’t even in his own body as he watched Allura exit the ship Lotor following close behind and there was a roaring in his ears. After the _months _of working together, how easily Allura could smile at him now despite their rough and rocky start, what Lance had to say _couldn’t be that important_? What had Lotor DONE to her??

“Lance?” Coran asked, turning him around to face him and he gave Lance a searching expression, “What happened with the Lions?”

Lance tried to snap out of it and he looked around for anyone else listening. Shiro was still on the bridge. Shiro, the Shiro that had been in the astral plane had said not to trust this version of himself. So many different things to were at war with Lance. A clone. A Friend. Brainwashed? Lance just couldn’t imagine Shiro hurting anybody. Yeah was short tempered for a while there, but then he and Lance had started working together on helping those migraines. They had really started getting along! He needed to be sure that Shiro was really a danger before he took any rash decisions. He owed Shiro that much at least.

“Later. When we’re alone.” He said and Coran frowned, turning to his console with a shrug. Lance sighed, and looked back over at Shiro, who was chatting with hunk as Lotor and Allura flew off into space with their harvesting ships. _It can’t be that important _Kept echoing through his head. What could be more important than figuring out if Shiro was okay?

The room turned red with Alerts.

“Wait a minute.” Coran frowned, “Is that…an Altean ship?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo what did you all think? Short answers long answers emjoji's it doesn't matter! Let me know down in the comment section below! :D


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of things happen, castles get destroyed people get yelled at.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! It's finals week so I'm posting this a little later than I wanted!! Enjoy!!

Lance was trying. He was trying _so hard. _But no. No one listened to Lance. Shiro, the clone, got out of control everything got shot to hell, but everything got solved once Keith and Allura got their heads out of the dirt however, the castle had to be sacrificed in the mean time and everyone was scrambling to get at least a few belongings before they had to close the rift.

A rift that wouldn't have happened if Allura hadn't gotten so damn enamored by Lotor. 

At first, Lance was just going to bring a few trinkets and Kaltenecker but he was heading over to the room where they were keeping Kaltenecker when he remembered, oh shit. _The pool. _Pidge would laugh at him for this, but he had come to like the pool a lot and he wasn’t just going to let that go.

It was from Altea he held pieces of that lost culture and there was no way he was going to let that get completely vaporized under his watch. It had been a companion, and a friend. It was kind to him when he felt overwhelmed and lonely. So, he sprinted his way to the kitchens. Hunk, thankfully, was in his room gathering up his own stuff and this gave Lance the opportunity to absolutely tear the place apart to find something any seal-able container he could find. In one of the shelves there was a plastic or glass bottle of some sort it was large and more than enough. He grabbed that sucker and ran to the pool.

The lights were dim and the waters pattern was backlit onto the floor and his chest got tight as he walked under it. An illusion of being where he belonged. He reached up and called water down to him, filling up the glass. When it was full he sealed the container and he was panting his ears were rushing and he looked up at the ceiling of shifting light his one escape companion and confidant. The castle had to be destroyed for the greater good but he had to destroy the remnants of the Altea’s final songs. He held the glass close hoping this small token would be enough, an idea forming. Plotting, and remembering old hymns that weren’t his own.

Before he left he reached up again, and the water greeted him in return, a goodbye of sorts. An exchange of fondness and Lance didn’t want to let that go. He could go back to he kitchen, grab another bottle or jar as many as he could.

_It’s alright Child. _The water receded, _everyone has their time. And you have a part of me with you. Nothing lasts forever, not even water. But I hope that the part of myself that stays with you will make you happy._

The water receded. He took a deep breath and headed for Kaltenecker.

\--

The ship was destroyed they had limited resources on the lions a long long trip home, and no one could decide where they wanted to be. Which was fine with Lance. Back in cuba he and his land family had gone on one or two road trips but at least then he had a phone to entertain him or music to listen to and siblings to chatter with but here? In the lions in the pit of space in the voids armpit? _No one was talking to him. _

“Come on Pidge.” Lance goaded, “If you aren’t going to play a roadtrip game with me at least transmit your music files over I’m _dying over here._” In more ways than one.

“_Fine.” _Pidge snapped a few clicking noises over their comm, “There, now stop bothering me. I’m trying to do some research on the gravity of blackholes.”

Yeah. To keep her busy on this long…long trip.

Hunk had opted out of roadtrips games because he was having to entertain their new Altean friend..Romelle? Something like that. And trying to play a game of 20 questions with alteans and earthlings wasn’t exactly easy and they only had so many common things between them to make the game fair.

Even _Keith _was keeping his comms off to catch up with Shiro and bond with his mom. God he felt more alone than ever. The worst part of this stupid trip out of anything was the rationing. Coran was trying to accommodate by giving Lance a little more water when they distributed resources but Allura wanted everything to be fair. Which meant that Lance got ‘the necessary amount for a human’. His throat was constantly parched and he could feel the bags under his eyes getting worse and he was getting stiff from having to keep hold to his form so tightly without much to hold onto.

Finally, mercifully, they had managed to come across a trading post, one that they had managed to liberate from pirates and didn’t really ask for much in return giving them supplies. Lance didn't even need to say anything to Coran before he was hopping off announcing he was going to find some water and food cubes.

Lance was looking for something specific though, heading to the jewelry sections. Through the stalls he looked for a small container. A sealable one, with a cap and not a cork. Corks were porous and difficult to keep water in.

There, it was a small glass vial shaped like a tooth of larger animal. Like a tiger or something, and the cap was a screw on. Lance gently picked it up from the other pendants and examined the inside of the cap, relieves to see a layer of wax in the top.

“How much?” He asked, the merchant looked up from her embroidery hoop with an interested smile. She had more wrinkles on her body than he thought her surface area could account for her hair in a braid that went down her back, it look like it hadn't been cut in a long time. She looked Lance over, somehow between her wrinkled face, and smiled.

“No charge my dear.” She lifted her own pendant, full of a familiar pink-ish water, “Us children must stick together. One day I will return to my mother and join back with her. I hope you do the same.” As she spoke she took the pendant, and put it in Lances hand, curling his fingers over the delicate glass, “My friend, born from a volcano, made these for me to sell and give to others. This was made from the sand of a now dead planet. Keep it safe, child.” Lance nodded, and leaned over, kissing the woman on the cheek.

“Thank you, I'm sure you'll make it back.” He said and he put the pedant on his neck. He wasn’t well versed in fire spirits. But at least now he had a story to tell Red.

Despite the renewed water rations he felt dehydrated next to the fire of the planetoid they were on. Red was singing softly in the back of his mind to keep his occupied. Some story about a great blacksmith who partnered with a carpenter to make toys for children. It was cute, maybe a fable that Alfor had told Red once. 

Kieth and Shiro were talking to Krolia. Coran was talking with Romelle and Allura. Hunk and Pidge were chatting together whispering about one thing or another and Lance was struggling to process everything even as the mice chattered in his ear and cosmos lay at his feet.

“So none of you suspected?” Shiro said to everyone after all. He gave a short laugh, “It must have been a pretty convincing clone.”

Which confirmed Lance’s deep rooted fear, Shiro had his body back, who knows if this Shiro had any memories from before. Same body, different mind. No memories of confidence in each other, no memories of training together, or playing Monsters and Mana. Lance had just lost one of his closest friends since Keith joined the blade and everyone was acting like none of that had happened.

“It was.” Pidge said, “But that doesn’t mean we didn’t notice differences.”

“I only wish we had noticed sooner.” Allura sighed, “Perhaps then we wouldn’t have lost the castle and we could be getting around much easier.”

“Are you kidding me?” Lance heard himself say, his vision fuzzy, and his ears doing that weird roaring thing. Everyone looked up, “Guys, I _tried_ to tell you what was going on.” His voice hitched at the end. Red pressed at the back of his mind in concern and Lance stood up. Again, Lance had gone into the Astral plane _again _had _spoken to shiro. _And he didn’t even have the deceny to remember.

“I tried to warn all of you but nooo Lance doesn’t have anything _important to say at all. _He’s just the goofball that’s only there when it’s convenient! We could have saved _both of them _if you hadn’t gotten so infatuated with that snaked tongued son of a bitch!” He shouts and he clenches his fists squeezing his eyes shut.

No one said anything. The silence was heavy, heavier than the deepest pressure of the ocean and he just didn’t wanna deal with it.

“You know what? I need to cool off. No need to wait up for me.”

And he stalked off, looking the Kaltenecker who was off in the grassy areas getting her feed on.

He was petting Kaltenecker trying to get himself to cool down and he heard footsteps behind him.

“Look I’m not apologizing.” He said to whoever it was.

“I’m not expecting you to.” Keith. Of course. The guy that comes along to fix EVERYTHING, the guy who came back after _two years _in a space whale and spent all his spare time with who? Not Lance that's what. He had thought that they both had had something going. He supposed that it was stupid to think that a silly swordsmanship lesson would've meant anything. His eyes burned.. his form hurt, being so de-hydrated hurt. They hadn’t come across a safe body of water in AGES for him to relax in this- this is the last thing he needs right now.

“Lance, you’ve been… high strung.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Lance said stretched his hands above his head, “That’s kinda what happens when no one believes a word you say. It’s kinda what happens when you’re so far from home- from from *any* comfort. It’s what happens when you’re grieving for someone that no one else is batting an eye for.” He grates, his form feeling tight his head pounding with a headache that hadn’t ceased for three days. “It’s what happens when you feel like- like you’re gonna, fall apart any second but everyone still expects, jokes and flirts and- and stuff I just-“

He makes a noise in the back of his throat and he drops down low, crouching and he sighs.

“I wanted to save him. The clone. He- he wasn’t Shiro, not really but he was _good _Keith. He was a leader, he was my friend and I couldn’t _save him._”

Keith was silent for a second, “It’s okay to grieve. I’m sorry that Shiro didn’t assimilate the clone’s memories, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be friends with _this _Shiro. He may not have payed Monsters and Mana with you, but he did play space spore fights, and let you take control of the Beta Traz mission.”

“This Shiro feels like a stranger.” Lance admits, “It’s been what, a year? More than? Since he was taken into the astral plane. He’s had a year of floating in nothing and barely having any contact with the outside world.”

“But you were the one he was able to talk to right? You mentioned that you found out, you had to have learned it from Shiro.”

“Well yeah. I guess. But Shiro doesn’t even remember _that _part.”

Keith shrugged, “Then let him know. Use it as an icebreaker. It’s not a you versus us thing. We’re all we’ve got right now, and we can’t afford any of us drifting too far.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

Keith snorted, “Do you know how many fights my mom and I had in that space whale? If we hadn’t gotten over ourselves we would have been alone. I have a deeper understanding of patience now.”

“Oh yeah, forgot. Keith is now older _and _wiser. Perfect for wooing the crowds.”

Keith snorted “I have no intention of wooing any crowds. Just one particular lover-boy paladin.”

Lance,face now burning, turned to stare up at the stars. Looking for earth, for any familiar constellations. He reached up and rubs at the vial of water hanging around his neck. Both of them taking comfort in each others company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting closer to the end ya'll! And it's getting close to the end of the year, dang!! Lemme know your thoughts!! Small comments, large, emoji's whatever you feel! I really appreciate them all!!


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Lance talk a bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! We're almost to the end already, I hope you enjoy!

As they sat together Lance reached up and grasped at his pendant staring off to the horizon, Keith bumped his shoulder.

“Whatcha have there?”

Lance blinked, and looked down at his hand, holding the vial of the glittering water. “Oh uh, just a little memento from the castle.”

Keith hummed, “May I see it?” Lance’s breath hitched but he slowly took the chain off and handed it to Keith, when their fingers brushed it was like a warm flush of heat and when they parted his hand tingled just a little. This feeling almost made it worth it.

“Water?”

“From the pool.” 

Keith tilted his head a little furrowing his brows a little, “Why?”

“Memento?” Lance tried.

Keith didn't look convinced. His eyebrows, that had been raised with curiosity leveled over his eyes parallel and his mouth curved down into a frown.

“Somehow I get the feeling that isn’t the full reason.”

“Dude, sometimes a vial of water if a vial of water. It was a nice pool.”

Keith leaned away and crossed his arms.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“Why are you getting all up in arms about this?”

“Because you’ve been isolating yourself! And don’t think I didn’t see Coran meddle with the water rations. You’ve been drinking almost twice as much as everyone else. What are you hiding?”

Lance shrunk in on himself, looking away from Keith and bringing his knees up to his chest, hugging them close.

“Drinking more water doesn’t mean anything, it…keeps my skin from breaking out.” Not technically a lie.

“Coran wouldn’t just give you more water for keeping your acne down, it’s more than that. Coran got so much water and he looked _worried._”

Lance had been worrying Coran? Sure he was feeling dehydrated all the time now but…He sighed and rested his chin on his arms. “If I…_really _told you why I don’t think you guys would ever see me the same way.” He had never revealed his true nature willingly. Coran was a very _very _special case and that wasn’t because just felt like it.

From the looks of his Lance hadn’t encouraged Keith to give up and his just blinked pursing his lips a little, looking at the vial of water he was holding in the palm of his hand and then back at Lance, “How do you think I felt when I was figuring out I was part Galra?”

“Huh?” Lance oh so gracefully responded.

“The knife,” Keith supplied, “The whole being able to open the door on my own. The whole..trial situation.”

“Of course I remember.” Lance assured unfolding himself and crossed his legs turning a bit more to face Keith, “You could have died.”

“Yeah whatever.” Keith rolled his eyes holding out the vial for Lance to take. Which he did and put it back around his neck, “The whole point is that me being part Galra didn’t affect how you view me. Or at least I don’t think it did.”

Keith had _no right _to look so vulnerable when he said that, and Lance was quick to assure him that NO being Galra hadn’t negatively affected his view of Keith.

“How could you even think that?” Lance rambled on, “You’re the same Keith that practically broke the flying simulator at the Garrison _and _the guy who drove us off a cliff and we didn’t die. Keith you’re the same guy who got swallowed by a _space whale _and aged up like- two years. I would be a jerk for thinking any less of you just because you happen to have a little purple in your blood.”

Keith blinked a couple of times, assimilating the information and then he shook his head, “I don’t think that’s how blood works? But okay. I get it. I’m still the same person so…why would you be any different?”

Betrayal. _Lance _was supposed to be the one who comforted people by making them eat their own words. Not the other way around. His face screwed up and Keith laughed lightly. Scooting closer to Lance.

“I’m willing to listen, if you’re willing to tell me.”

“I know for you it’s been two years Keith.” Lance said, “It’s been…just a few months I guess? But everyone found their own little corner of the castle. Hunk and Pidge, Allura and Lotor. I had Shiro to talk to, sure. And Coran, but there’s always something else to do you know? But I had Kaltenecker and the clone…and the pool.”

There was a pause, because of course admitting that the pool was a companion would short circuit Keith’s brain.

“You had the pool? How’s…water exactly a companion?”

“Because…” He bit his lip, fumbling at the vial he had around his neck. “Because the reason water can sorta do what I want it to because I…came..from water,”

Keith’s face was totally blank at that statement.

“Look,” Lance defended, “I know it’s weird and I know normal babies are like, IN water and blood inside their mom’s or eggs or whatever but this is different, I swear. Keith, I remember the _moment _I was made. I was massless, a thought, a consciousness, and then I heard my mom’s voice for the first time and I _knew _where I came from. I don’t really know how old I am. I remember a time when whales were free to roam around anywhere they wanted. I remember times when I would get to swim with penguins with so much fish you couldn’t see! And I remember seeing coral reefs grow. But I wasn’t as _me _as I am now, it’s like I was growing. Forming, becoming my own person developing inside my mother and like with human or even shark birth BAM there was a whole world above. With things like, fire and poachers and families that gave each other names. It’s how I found my family in Cuba. One day I just…walked onto the shore of Varadero beach no clothes, or any idea on what those were. Mom didn’t call me back she just…let me go, like I was ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“Definitely not space.” Lance laughed, leaning over himself and gently rubbing the vial of Altean water between his thumb and index finger. “So That’s me. Waterboy.”

Silence stretched between them, palatable but not threatening. Red purred in the back of his mind and Blue as equally present meaning Allura had probably gone to sleep.

“I never realized I was such a dick to you at the start. Especially when I became the head of voltron.” Keith said to the open air, “The last family I had… Shiro, my mom. Were in space. Your family, the one in Cuba and the things that encompasses most of EARTH is your mom, that’s all you’ve ever had. Oh god and Hunk? I’ve gotta apologize to him too…” Keith buried his face in his hands, “We were just kids. What were we _doing _flying around in a space lion and just jumping into WAR?”

Lance shrugged listlessly, “I just considered it the universe just drafting us in for its own nefarious purposes. But we’ve done a lot of good.” Lance leans over onto Keith, “But I’m all fought out Keith. I’m not…built for this. I need to go home.”

Silence again, Lance knew it was stupid. He knew they were already on a course back to earth there was no helping anything the journey’s time. He just had to be patient.

“Then go home.” Keith said, breaking the spell and Lance looked up, furrowing his brows.

“Dude, there’s no way.”

“Yes, there is, Blue teludaved once before, right? I’m sure she could do it again. We’re supposed to be staying on this planet for a couple more movements, right? Take advantage of that. I’m sure the rest of the lions will follow.”

“How can you be _sure,_” Lance stressed.

“I can’t. But I also can’t allow you to suffer anymore than you have, either.”

Lance sighed and leaned against Keith, “Blue isn’t even speaking to me anymore. I mean, sometimes I can feel her. But she doesn’t _talk _to me.”

Keith leaned back, looking at Lance with a soft but sad smile, “All you can do is try.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo what're your thoughts? Short comments, long comments and emoji's are all welcome! One more chapter to go ya'll and then this series will be wrapped up!!


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the end, but not a bad one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, it's the last chapter!! It's been a long time coming, and I hope you all enjoy it. This is the chapter that was inspired by that comic on tumblr that inspired this whole series! I hope you all enjoy the end of Ocean Child.

Lance and Keith made their way back, guiding Kaltenecker along the way and bid each other goodnight; Keith gave him a long look and it felt soft and Lance felt the weight of what that look meant. Keith was trusting whatever decision Lance would make and went to the camp they had set up with the tents and their sleeping bags. Lance instead of joining them, looked to make sure that everyone else was sleeping. It was so late and quiet. This asteroid was strange enough to have an atmosphere and grass, but there was a severe lack of animals.

Lance walked Red into the hanger of Red and he was about to head out to join the rest of the crew sleeping but he stopped himself, he could always try and go to Blue, like Keith said. But somehow it just didn’t feel right. He and Red only just recently got close. So instead, he walked over to the cockpit in red.

He looked at the chair, and the controls and he felt his chest get tight.

_Your thoughts? _Red asked and Lance took a deep breath, settling in the chair.

“Kinda hard to share my thoughts when I’m not even sure what it is that I want.” Lance sighed, leaning back and looking at the ceiling Red waited, nudged at him a couple of times but didn’t force anything, “I want..I want to go home.” He finally whispered, so softly he barely heard himself. But read heard.

_Why wouldn’t you be able to go home?_

“Because the castle was destroyed? Because you’re having a hard enough time trying to get power?” Lance responded, his eyes stinging at the corner just thinking about the sheer _distance. _

_Oh Paladin. _Red soothed, the a glow permeating from the entire cabin, the handles themselves started to glow the same way the teludav controls glowed when Allura controlled them.

_Just picture where you want to go. _

Lance took a deep breath, and reached out, and took the control, picturing Earth, with the moon, and the waters where he was born. He wanted to go home, like something unlocking in the back of his mind and Red took off, flying through the atmosphere in taking up his viewer was a tiny blue portal, a tiny blue portal that lead to his tiny blue planet.

From a distance it didn’t look any different. Home was still home and the water was just as blue as he left it and he could feel the pull of the ocean. He knew exactly where he wanted to go.

Varadero beach had white sand, much darker in the shadows of the moon and his mother as blue and beautiful as ever. Lance took a shuttering breath and he reached for the container containing the last of Altea’s waters. He even took his pendant off, carefully pouring the small amount of water back into the container before making the journey back outside.

He shed his paladin armor. Now just in his shirt and shorts. Feet bare and pressing into the sand and it wasn’t quite home, but the short road to getting there. And his feet finally touched the first wave and he cried. It was silent and it was so full of love of his mom just welcoming him back openly and asking him so many questions. He knelt down and put his hand in the water.

_I’ll explain Mami, but first…I have to ask you to do something. A planet, a far far away planet has lost all of its water but what I’m holding. I don’t want that planet to disappear. I want it to become part of you. So their songs can… can live on. _

**_Of course. _**His mother responded, lifting up a part of herself to stroke his arm. He chuckled past his tears and took a deep breath. He opened the container, and tipped it out into the expanding sea.

It was like ripple of music as old Altean songs merged with Earth's younger melodies, it was a weight off of Lance to see that the water was accepted. It was safe and would be remembered. He watched as the glowing water parted and spread. Spreading and spreading until the glow disappeared. But lance could feel it. He could feel Altea’s water singing with his mother, sharing and getting to know its new home.

He smiled and stood up, basking in the breeze, feeling the wet sand between his toes even ankle deep in his mother. He knew this peace couldn't have lasted. Life above water was so fleeting. Behind him he heard the roars of the lions. The shaking of the earth as they landed.

Allura was the one to approach him her feet crunching on this sand with reproach and a lack of empathy. Anyone else would have called out to him, and he knew that she wasn’t going to be happy. But if she pulled anything on His planet on His shore, she had another thing coming. The disappointment she had in him radiated out in waves. Disappointment in the way he left. How he wasn’t enough. How he couldn’t conform.

But his disappointment was on equal footing. Disappointment on how she hadn't listened to him about Shiro. How she ignored the team and their well being for Lotor. Enumerable other minor infractions. He looked out at the horizon, not bothering with acknowledging Allura was there, her short breaths steaming out in a poor attempt to keep her temper. His mother gentle rushing with the waves around him, attempting grounding him.

“Lance, we are at war. You’ve stolen the Red lion, endangered your planet. Your family. It doesn’t matter that you were homesick what you did was selfish and cruel. If not for Keith we may not been able to come back together to form Voltron before it was too late. You need to grow up and act your age.”

There was a ringing in Lance’s ears, “Act my age?” he mutters softly to the wind, a gust brushing past him the water darkening as he turned to face Allura.

“What the fuck is that,” He aggressed motioning to Allura, “Act my AGE?”

Then the storm came in anger long simmering inside him, angry at her. Angry at Zarkon and Haggar and Lotor and all the other people who couldn’t understand the DEPTH of their stupidity.

“What do I CARE about how old I am.” He was the son of the ocean. He was a DEMI god and he was a PALADIN OF VOLTRON. He pulled on his power calling for the water, for the help of his mother. And she responded with a roar flaring up behind him in a wall of righteous motherly fury. Towering above him and casting himself as well as Allura in shadow.

“The ocean is old as FUCK.” The water rose even higher, “But it will still DROWN your ass with VIGOR.” And the water crashed down behind him sending mist flying and the gust made Allura gasp and take a step back her hair flying behind her.

He felt his eyes burn as Lance glared at Allura, “So WHAT do I care about how OLD I am?” He shouted, his voice cracking at the end and his shoulders rose and fell with each breath he took. He wanted to scream, he wanted to yell. He wanted to drown her and Voltron and the Galran empire he wanted to be HOME and he wanted to be with his MOM. What was so WRONG ABOUT THAT. He turned around to face the horizon so he didn’t have to look in the face of Allura. So he wouldn’t get angry all over again.

Time passed, but he didn’t know how long.

“Lance?” Came a soft voice and Lance jerked his head up. When had he sunk to his knee’s? Keith was there, his hair damp and brows creasced with worry. “There you are.” Kieth soothes with a soft smile.

“It’s gonna be okay.” Keith continues, his hands on Lance’s shoulders now, squeezing gently. “You probably missed this place right? I can see why.”

“I missed my mom the most.” Lance choked out. Reaching down to touch the water, feeling her love and concern. “I missed her touch, her love. Her songs.” And in the back of lance’s mind along with the song of the blue lion was the Lullaby of the ocean. His shoulders shook as the chains of loneliness and homesickness fell away. The ache that had become far larger than his heart could hold was being soothed and healed by two of the most important people in his life.

Keith was hugging Lance close saying whispering things that didn’t make sense, “Staying here, vacation. Hunk.”

Lance sniffled, “Hunk’s here?”

Keith nodded, “Yeah, mentioned something about finding HIS mom. Disappeared with Yellow. Shiro’s gone to Japan. Pidge’s is with the other’s making camp. Allura is pretty shaken.”

“She deserves it.” Lance slurs feeling more tired than he had ever felt before. He wanted to sleep.

“Come one Lance, Let’s get you in a bed.” Lance shook his head.

“’Sleep in the ocean.”

Keith froze, “Uh, can you breathe underwater?” Lance shrugs.

“I’m different when I’m with ‘er…not…fully human? Corporeal? Washed a’shore one day…now I’m me.”

“That…doesn’t really help me feel better about letting you sleep in the ocean for the night.”

Lance chuckles kissing Keith on the neck, “’ll be fine doofus. ‘night.” And lance fell back into his mother’s embrace letting his form just... flow again.

\--

Morning came far too soon when Lance had to pull himself back together. Keith was waiting on the shore his face morphed in childlike awe. “That’s amazing…” He murmurs and reached for lance, Lance returns the embrace and they hug.

“You know, I think there are still some secrets you haven’t told us yet.”

Lance hums, “I’ll tell you later, first I gotta find a fairy stone. I need to check something out about Pidge.”

“Should I be worried?” Lance laughed, not answering his question. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done! I feel a bit strange, especially since the note we leave on makes me feel like there's more to be said. However, currently I don't really know what that something is! So I'm just gonna move on to the next project and finish that one. Let me know how you felt about this! Any thoughts are welcome large small or just emoji's!  
Thank you everyone for joining me on this journey.

**Author's Note:**

> What did you all think? I'd love to hear what you have to say! Small large whatever it is I look forward to it! I'll see you all in the next chapter! :)


End file.
